Amman & Jerash
two cities in different times
Cestopis z roku 2018 napsala Monika _6
One of our last stops are Amman and Jerash. How the capital looks like?
a grey city spread on several hills, full of hybrid cars, one way streets and vibrant life
Arriving to Amman makes us notice the difference. This city is fast paced, traffic just goes crazy, no rules and signs mainly in Arabic, our offline navigation simply do not handle this well and we drive into the wrong side of one-way street several times. This city is oriented by circles - huge roundabouts - so it's useful remember your destination by proximity to a circle. We end up using Uber to move around city, it is just easier and quicker version of transport, usually the drives are (rate is approximately 1JOD per 3 km).
a view from WIld Jordan Center
this city is full of graffity
stairs are everywhere
the Duke's Diwan where time has stopped
Grand Husseini Mosque
King Abdullah I Mosque
As we find out soon, there is not much to see in the capital - we just decide to roam around the city, do some shopping and exploring. And of course, the food - one of best experiences is Tawaheen Al hawa restaurant, where we order a mix of appetizers and main coursed and everything is delicious (for me, most amazing was smoked aubergine spread with pomegranate) plus we receive a plate of fruit and a big plate of desserts as a compliment - whole dinner with drinks for 4 persons cost us 57 JOD. Other recommendation is best sandwich you can get - Al Quds Falafel on Rainbow street - this place is here for several years and one amazing sandwich full of taste costs not even 1 JOD. Since we are on Rainbow street, we stop at Fanillah and Mlabbas to get some gifts - both they are local brands with clothing, accessories and household items (don't expect something boring, they are smart and funny). Also Books@cafe, place visited by hip crowd and tourists, attracts our attention - unfortunately food is mediocre, but shisha is well done (plus they have happy hours for drinks).
sandwich from Al Quds Falafel
book@cafe
Tawaheen Al hawa
a Sugar Market in city center
souvenir from Fanillah - those we were in Jordan will understand
Due to a changing weather (it starts to be rainy), we move our trip to Jerash on Thursday. And once we are lucky, the weather is again amazing and sunny. The site of ancient Jerash is one hour drive from Amman and it's in the middle of actual city Jerash. This archeological complex is like a huge playground - you can go/climb everywhere you want and no one cares. Most of the ruins are reconstructed, we notice lots of ancient lego pieces spread everywhere, waiting to be assembled. After four hours running around, we go back to car and head to Amman. This time, we choose a different road - instead of highway we go to the valley and drive through cities.
entrance to ancient complex
work in progress... and bricks used to be the famous walls of Jerash
just a part of vast archeological site
in one of amphitheater was performance - a local playing on pipes and drums
It starts to rain when we get back to Amman, so idea of lunch is more than appealing. We strategically wait for rain to stop and we go to check out the Capitol. After visiting Jerash, it feels kind of small and boring. So what else we can do during rainy Amman? The answer is a Turkish bath and a Royal automobile museum, both turns up to be a good choices.
a view from capitol
just a few bricks
one of buildings in a capitol
the Mars Rover from the Martian - first piece of exposition in Royal automobile museum
The king had "few" special toys
If I should choose one, I take this darling
Unfortunately our times in Amman (and Jordan) runs up, we leave Angie at her hostel (she flights from Amman) and rest of us is in on the way back to Aqaba. Road gets longer than we expected, so we arrive to our last stop - Karak - just at closing time. After some negotiations and performance worth a Grammy, the officer let us to peak in and quickly run in the complex of corridors and walls. We slide to the road leading to Dead sea and to Wadi Mujib, going thru storm in the mountains (you can guess, there was not even a white line showing where the road goes) to arrive in the evening to Aqaba.
Karak before storm
one of dozens of corridors
On Saturday morning, we go for a last brunch (Rakwet Kanaan Restaurant & Cafe, again yummy!), return the car, get into ordered taxi (a barber from last night, we agreed on 8JOD) to the borders. We still remember our first crossing of borders, so we go earlier to get some spare time and it turns up as a good idea, our bus is late. Again. After 30 mins, the Israeli offices offers her help and calls the bus company. There is a special car coming for us, to transport us to the gas station in Eilat, where the bus should pick us up. The girls go more nervous with every minute approaching the time of our departure, but finally the bus arrives (30 mins before our flight departure). The driver explains that the airport has problem with staff - many of their workers were partying last night, got drunk and didn't came to work. So there is lack of personnel to do security checks. We think he's just making fun of us, but it turns up to be reality. We are just in time to pass all 5 security stations and board to the flight home.
We say a farewell to this beautiful piece of land and the kind people we met. For sure, I'll come back.
Jak se ti cestopis líbil?
Monika _6 procestovala 41 zemí světa světa, nejvíce Evropu a Asii. Na Cestujlevne.com se přidala před 5 lety a napsala pro tebe 8 úžasných cestopisů.
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