Jordan was one of the countries where I didn’t expect much, but was extremely surprised. We took a bus from Nazareth to Amman, and started our Jordan trip here. I would say that there are not as many touristic sites in Jordan as other countries, but they are all absolutely stunning.  Amman was like any capital city, busy and big. We took a taxi to the center and spent one night there visiting local ruins, historical sites, and eating street food.

Jordan is a predominately Muslim country, so the difference from Israel to Jordan was quite drastic. Our hotel in Amman was an actual hotel, and not our typical guest house stay or Airbnb. Our fist morning, we went and got another rental car and toured the northern city of Jerash where we visited the ancient ruins of a city from the B.C. era. Jerash is about an hour from Amman in the north, and as we got closer to Jerash, we kept seeing road signs for the Syrian border, only about 15 miles away. We were glad to not make any wrong turns in this area.

One is able to drive from the top of Jordan to the bottom of Jordan in one day. I would compare it to the size of Tennessee. After vising Jerash, we drove our car down along the Dead Sea to visit the ancient city of Petra. There is a long National highway in Jordan, and every 10 or so miles, there are police stops. One is required to pull over and they check your car. You arrive at these checkpoints after a series of mega sized speed bumps. The scene would go something like this.  Open your window, “where are you from?” We are from the USA. Look at us oddly, smile, and bid us farewell. It was during this time that Morgan was doing some driving, and for a woman to drive in a Muslim country was quite unheard of. There were always scowling faces from the men.

Petra is the most famous site in Jordan, and one of the seven natural wonders of the world. It sees millions of visitors each year, and of course is where they filmed one of the Indiana Jones’s movies. We got into Petra late at night, and stayed with our kind host at our Airbnb. We ate a huge dinner with his family, declined his offer to smoke week, and drank tea for a couple of hours. He then led us to our small hut for the evening in separate area of the property. Our host was also a horseback guide in Petra during the day, and promised us a tour the next day when we arrived at the gates.

The next morning I opened our door to find a blizzard of snow with almost 2ft on the ground. Morgan was still sound asleep in her bed, and I yelled out, “hey it’s snowing.” She had to get up to see for herself. We couldn’t believe it. We just came from 90 degree weather in Amman, and we had snow 4 hours away. Our guide was out in the snow next door in his flip flops and vintage 70’s Mercedes car about to crank it up to drive to work. He waved, and said he would see us soon.

Since we drove in the dark into Petra, we didn’t really know where we were in comparison to the ancient town. We were staying on the high side, and we had to drive down to the city center to enter the site. It was a series of switchbacks and winding mountain roads to the bottom, about 3 miles worth.  Morgan, our fearless Montana driver, said no fear, I can drive us safely to the bottom. As we started out on the snowy road in our Honda Civic, two wheel drive, I began to feel anxious, even with my confident wife at the wheel. The roads were covered in snow in ice, and it was long before our car just wouldn’t stop. We glided around the S- curves with no options for stopping along the way. We somehow stopped at the bottom of the hill almost 1 mile from the top. It was a miracle we didn’t slam into the mountains or guardrails. There were still 2 more miles to go to reach the entrance gates. We actually stopped at a police barricade, and they were ushering drivers to stop driving until the roads cleared. Our delightful host continued to whiz by in his Mercedes without a care in the world and waved at us. The police essentially laughed at us for driving, made us park our car, and told us we couldn’t go any further until the roads cleared. We got to another hotel, ate breakfast, and waited for the snow to clear, which took a few hours once the sun came out.

Finally, once inside the Petra gates, it was warm and sunny. I had not seen weather like this since New Zealand. Petra did not disappoint, and we spent over 5 hours in there just wandering around the ancient city carved out of sandstone. It was about 4 PM when we decided to leave Petra, and drive another 5 hours to our next stop of Wadi Rum, in the southern part of the country. This is where the story gets more interesting.

Stay tuned next week for more.

Until next time,

David and Morgan