Jordan Wrap Up

I have spent the past four days exploring Jordan. It has been a great experience. I got into Jordan around 1am on Wednesday morning. I stayed in the capital Amman, which has its beautiful and ugly parts. My hostel, the Ferah Hotel, was nothing to write home about. There was a hole in the ground for a toilet and a water sprayer for toilet paper, talk about going green. The first day was spent exploring a city north of Amman called Jerash, which is home to one of the most extensive Roman cities still in existence. The next day I took a road trip to Petra, south of Amman. On the way we stopped for a quick swim in the Dead Sea, and I was able to float like a log. It was unbelievable!

The next day was spent exploring the ancient city of Petra. I was amazed at how extensive it is. I was able to get some good hiking in and see the city from atop of some of the mountains. A flash flood had me and two Spaniards trapped at the bottom of the valley with some locals. Once the rain stopped, we had to hike out of there to safety and some locals gave us a ride back, for a fee of course.

The local currency is the Dinar, or JD as referred to by the locals. The JD is surprisingly stronger than the US dollar, so things were relatively expensive. Granted Petra was very touristy, an entry ticket is 50 JD, which is $70.57. Outrageous, but worth it!

I was not able to eat much of the local food. In Amman I was able to have some and it was mainly based on pita bread and beans and rice. I had different pitas stuffed with potatoes, meat, and mystery food?? But it was all really good. In Petra, since it was so touristy, there was no local food; pizza, burger, pasta, etc were the restaurants that lined the streets. Jordanians also love their hummus and eat it for all three meals, I'm not complaining.

The people here are extremely nice and love the US. They would always greet me with "welcome" or a piece sign. The most unsafe thing about this country is all the refugees flocking from surrounding countries, but the King is doing a good job with keeping the county under control (yes, a King). The worst thing about the country is the large amounts of trash everywhere. It is engrained in the people's heads to just throw their trash on the street even when there is a trash bin a couple yards away. Just a couple hours ago, I watched as some kids were playing with some plastic bags on the beach and throwing them into the ocean. That would be a couple hundred dollar fine and some jail time in the US.

I am currently stranded in a town called Aqaba, which is at the southern point of Jordan. I woke up at 5:30 am to drive to Aqaba to catch a ferry to Dahab, Egypt. They just changed the schedule two weeks ago and now the only times the ferry leaves is at 3:30 am and 6:00 pm. The fast ferry leaves in the morning, taking about 45 minutes, and the slow ferry leaves at night, taking about three hours. Not sure why this is, seems kinda backwards to me, but hey, I'm not the one in charge.

As for my time in Egypt, I plan to do one to two night in Dahab, which has some of the top ten scuba dive spots in the world, and two nights in Luxor, home to many old Egyptian tombs and museums. I have a good friend who has two friends that live in Egypt and will be helping to guide me along my way. I can only spend four night in Egypt, as I am meeting a friend in Dubai Wednesday February 6th. I have somewhat set plans for now, but as you may have learned, my plans tend to change at the last minute. Not sure how the Internet will be in Egypt, I can't imagine it's any good; so, until next time.

Only time will tell and anything is possible!