So aside from moving halfway around the world, it’s been a while since Michael and I have taken a vacation together. In fact, we’ve never technically taken a vacation outside the country (together) that didn’t involve visiting family on some leg of the trip unless you count Mexico, which, let’s face it, is just an extension of living in southern Arizona/Tucson.
About a week ago we found out we would receive our passports back from the school. This is a VERY big deal since we had to turn them in the day after we arrived to begin the civil ID process in Kuwait during Ramadan (that turn-in date was back on August 22nd). We were warned many times not to make any plans for the holiday following Ramadan (Eid Al-Fitr) because all bets were off when it came to guessing when we might have our passports back. So we planned on hanging out, relaxing, and exploring Kuwait a little more for our nine-day break. But lo and behold we received emails saying we were some of the lucky few to have passports wrangled back, and on the day before our actual holiday began (Thursday, 17.9.09), everyone had passports returned. After chatting with friends, weighing options (Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan), and realizing just how much time we had off, we scurried over to a travel agency and booked the same four night/five day stay in Amman, Jordan as a couple of our friends. As the capital and major city in Jordan, it made sense to make Amman our base, but our travels took us all over the country, thanks in part to Michael’s adept driving in the face of insanity and the rental of a huge nine-seater Hyundai van that we affectionately named “Hezbollah” (yes, a terrorist group, but it also means “God’s party” in Arabic).
DAY ONE
We flew out on Friday (18.9.09), the very start of our holiday; looking back (as I sit lazily and exhausted on the couch typing out this blog post), I’m really happy it worked out this way because I do need a vacation from our vacation – we were damn busy! If you read the post below, I quickly outlined our itinerary and we were truly go-go-going every minute of the day. There were six of us to start, with Michael and me as the lone Americans in a van full of Canadians (eh? :), but when we hit Petra we rendezvoused with two other ASK American high school teachers that flew out a day later than us.
Arriving in Amman actually proved fairly simple. We flew Wataniya, a Kuwait-based airline that has its own airport separate from the chaos that is KWI. We had comfy seats (made by Recaro of Germany, same company that makes seats for Porsche), food on the plane, and polite flight attendants – what a concept! Since we did conduct this trip flying by the seat of our knee-length shorts, skirts, or pants (still Ramadan, women still need to be covered up…even more conservatively than usual), we traded some hard-earned Kuwaiti Dinar for some crappy-exchange rate Jordanian Dinar at the airport to have cash for the visas (10JD for each of us; we spent the entire trip slipping up and saying “KD” instead of “JD,” which can prove dangerous if sellers hear you because the KD is stronger and worth more). We now have very lovely new stickers and stamps on an entire page in our passports to prove that the traveling bug bit us and we traveled over the Eid holiday!
After all moving through the visa purchasing and stamping process, we headed to the duty free shop to stock up on alcohol (beer and vodka!) since A) you CAN drink in Jordan and B) we had received a tip that it’s much cheaper to buy at the duty free shop than at hotels, restaurants, and hostels (and the purchase could be made in U.S. dollars – I should have brought my left over cash – but used one of my credit cards instead and only racked up $25). We would have bought more, but only one bottle/six-pack per person allowed (although Michael was so happy to have a real cold beer). The gang headed downstairs next and debated how and where to grab a rental car. When it became clear our options were a bit limited due to the size of our group (six) and the lack of a reservation, we snagged a nine-seater van with a standard transmission. This almost immediately ensured Michael would drive which proved a blessing and a curse; it put a lot of extra stress on him to drive throughout the trip, but I don’t know if anyone else had the experience driving a van with such awful shifting (we smoked out the clutch backing uphill on our way to Petra!). The traffic definitely gives Boston and San Diego a run for their money. (Michael’s final description of driving in Amman and throughout Jordan was “terrifying,” which certainly wasn’t helped by the fact that our maps and the road signs often didn’t match, I possessed sub-par solo navigation skills in Amman, and traffic proved absolutely crazy due to the end of Ramadan/Eid celebrations. I think Michael just had to join in the insane driving mentality because I’ve never seen him try driving moves like that, yet we never got hit or hit anyone. However, one of the most horrific things we saw on our final night was a young woman on the side of the road with her head lying in a pool of basketball-sized blood, most likely from being shot or struck by a car, surrounded by a crowd and military police.)
So, van secured and everyone in (after one of the Thrifty agents very amusingly yelled at us with a straight face about why we were getting in the wrong van…Jordanians are much friendlier than Kuwaitis and like to tease), we proceeded to drive around for, um, an hour and a half (or longer?) trying to find the hotel. This situation was complicated by the fact that out of the three couples, one was staying at a different hotel (not by choice, they received their passports back and booked the trip the day before we left). We stopped and asked for directions multiple times, but finally pulled the van over by a cabbie changing his flat tire and had him lead us to the hotel (which we would not have found quickly otherwise); honestly, we weren’t even close to where we needed to be. Two couples checked in, bladders emptied, and multiple beers consumed, we headed out to find hotel #2. This did prove easier than finding the first hotel, and all but Michael trooped upstairs to use the bathroom once again (he stayed with the van – a necessity – and peed in the alley…love you, baby). Then we proceeded to wait about 10 minutes for the elevator, which, when it did open, was packed with about 20 people and no room for us. So our gang of five trooped down 15 (yes, that’s right) flights of stairs to find Michael very frustrated in the van after waiting on us for roughly 25 minutes (apparently in that time he’d been yelled at to move the van repeatedly by the hotel staff, including men guarding the hotel with MP5s and AR15s…they also questioned him once in Arabic, proving that he can “pass,” especially with his thick beard, driving a large van at night).
Food! Yes, we had received a meal on the flight, but that was about five hours earlier and we were all starving. After being willing to eat McDonald’s out of sheer hunger, we attempted to go into underground parking with no luck. That led us to a large round restaurant near the second hotel where Michael saw “testicles” and “brains” listed on the menu and suggested we check out the restaurant next door; there was also no one eating at the first restaurant and I personally never take that as a good sign. Unfortunately, the restaurant next door served mainly coffee and shisha, and we needed to eat, not just smoke. So back to the testicle restaurant we went where all the ladies challenged the men to eat balls to no avail. The food, mostly kabobs and such, turned out quite yummy; bellies full, we dropped off AL and MP to their hotel. However, I think it took us about 45 minutes to return to our hotel (boo to navigating streets in Amman with inferior maps at night…I’m definitely looking forward to public transportation in Amsterdam come November). We all agreed to an early start the next day since we had both Jerash and the Dead Sea on our agenda.
DAY TWO
We even beat the blue hairs down to breakfast! Since we booked last-minute (and I think the travel agent had the incorrect idea in her head that we needed a really nice place), we stayed at the Imperial Palace Hotel. They seemed to cater to an older (often German, and at times rude) tour group crowd; however, the hotel staff were always quite nice (especially the men outside contending with parking Hezbollah). We stuffed our faces for the day ahead, which included visiting Roman ruins roughly 2000 years old in Jerash (also known as the Greco-Roman city of Gerasa, I’m in the process of uploading a bunch of pics to our new Flickr account; we took over 350 photos). The drive there actually proved fairly straight forward (more or less) with a stop for me to use the bathroom (I developed a nasty urinary tract infection on the trip). We didn’t originally realize the ruins sat right in the middle of town and drove around a bit trying to determine if we had to buy the 8JD tickets to enter (yes, we did). We ambled in, Michael purchasing a flute involving electrical tape from a kid, and attempted to side-step the throngs of tourist groups. The other couples in our group tried to circumvent the ticket buying (and blend with the throngs of tourist groups), but then had to back track for purchasing when a ticket checkpoint popped up. Michael and I went on ahead; out of no where, an older gentleman aggressively, but kindly, took our camera and snapped some very good pictures of us among the ruins at Jerash. However, not asking for his services (and not ones to be coerced into handing out cash/not having much to hand out in the first place), he grumbled as he walked away with our offering (sorry, buddy…we are twenty/thirty-something teachers).
We meandered around, listening occasionally to the groups with English or Spanish-speaking tour guides. I’m not really a tour group kind of person, so Michael and I were happy to wander around, reading plaques, noticing details, and admiring the sheer size and age of it all. We reconnected momentarily with the other couples in the amphitheater (the acoustics were phenomenal; MP said she knew we were in there because they heard Michael talking in a normal speaking voice at the bottom as they all sat at the top). We chilled there for a few minutes and then headed back toward the beginning since we had already looped through most of the ruins. While we waited for everyone, we stopped at the restaurant/bar on site and enjoyed very cold, tasty (and expensive: 5JD!) Amstel Lights. Ah, well, vacation and all, and not being able to purchase REAL beer in Kuwait made it worthwhile. We liked that Jordan is a “relaxed Muslim” country – we were even able to eat and drink in public during Ramadan. Once everyone caught up to us, I plotted a route for the Dead Sea and we headed out.
Leaving from Jerash instead of Amman meant that we definitely took the long (but culturally rich) way around. Lots of small towns through which to drive, people crossing the street randomly without warning, and what we would consider in the U.S. to be nearly third-world conditions. We also started to realize that Jordan is a country that does not like to mark their “speed control” bumps very well (i.e. hardly at all, they often blend in with the same asphalt as the road), and we continued on our bumpy ride. Shortly before we reached the Dead Sea, we pulled over for lunch at a hold-in-the-wall (and floor, literally, with a hole in the ground as a bathroom) roasting chickens. We made the mistake of not agreeing on a price per chicken before we ate (big mistake) and ended up arguing with the man feeding us when he tried to rip us off for three chickens and two sodas at the rate of 18JD ($25). Yeah, right. We ended up throwing 15JD at him (and showing a few choice signals as we left; f*** you in the Middle East also can be shown by a gesture that looks like you’re screwing in a light bulb). That meal became labeled as the “chicken incident,” and we compared a great deal throughout the rest of the trip to the cost of each chicken (for reference, snorkeling gear and quickie instruction in Aqaba on our last full day only cost us 5JD each…go figure).
Once we reached the Dead Sea, we drove past all the big hotels and headed for a suggestion from the guide book: Amman Beach. The Lonely Planet guide book that MP/AL brought covered about six Middle Eastern countries and proved a valuable (and trusted) resource time and again; Amman Beach was clean, resort-like, and not too crowded. Getting out of the van, the temperature and air had changed palpably to be more hot and humid (basically Florida), and demonstrated the conditions of why the Dead Sea even exists. This place, probably above all the others, boggled my mind and made for a very child-like experience! Wading out into the water, I didn’t really get the full measure or sensation of being in water that salinated (and which provided so much buoyancy) until letting myself go at about waist-depth. My feet bobbed up and my whole body felt supported as if playing the game “light as a feather, stiff as a board” (ladies, remember that from all those early-age slumber parties?). Try as I might, I couldn’t stay under water (I actually never fully dunked my head because of my contacts), and one drop of water in my mouth or my eyes stung like crazy. Taking pictures and video proved challenging indeed (we had bought an awesome waterproof camera and Michael took amazing shots all holiday long); there was a complete lack of balance while bobbing along if your feet couldn’t touch the bottom. I squatted in the shallow water and dug out the dense clay particular to the Dead Sea and covered my chest, back, arms, and stomach with it. All the ladies bonded over the stinging on our legs (and other choice regions), even though I had shaved two days earlier. Any cut or sore on one’s body became a source of pain; so be warned: don’t go into the Dead Sea with major cuts or on a day you shave. After playing around and demonstrating various poses in the water (belly down like Superman, sitting cross-legged, grabbing feet like a baby on its back), we all made our way back up to the two pools also contained within the Amman Beach area. These pools (complete with a waterfall and stunning views) provided a refreshing contrast to the salt water. We swam, chatted, goofed around, and then realized our exhaustion caught up with us. We headed back to Amman, changed clothes, drank our coveted duty-free wine and beer, regrouped, and headed out to the large souk/market in the city center for more activity.
Michael and I aren’t big shoppers, so exploring Amman’s souks was more of a cultural experience than a shopping experience for us. We decided very early on when coming to Kuwait that our money is best spent on travel, debt, and savings than stuff. Besides, everything here (clothes, food, you name it) is more expensive. I’m sure as we travel more, I’ll collect a few items, but whatever we buy here will eventually have to make its way out of the country as well. Currently the only things on my “to buy” list include a few carpets, wall fabrics, and frames to decorate our apartment.
Saturday night (19.9.09), the night ending Ramadan and beginning Eid, proved totally busy in the heart of the city. We opted to share a taxi (six of us crammed into one because so many taxis wanted to charge us a crazy amount of money to head into this busy part of town!) rather than having Michael drive and park in the insanity; people and cars were everywhere and I don’t know that I’ve ever been in a city that crowded in that chaotic of a manner. The poverty of it all reminded me of Mexico: children begging for money, people selling food and worthless trinkets on the street, and families rushing around together (often holding young infants). Many men and women dressed in more traditional clothing; dishdashas for men and some combination of the abaya (the long robe), the hijab (the head covering), and the burqa (the veil piece that covers the face and sometimes exposes the eyes – Michael has taken to calling women wearing the full outfit “ninjas,” sometimes a little too loudly in public!). The end of Ramadan ensured this part of the city was extra–crowded and fireworks exploded off one of the minarets of a nearby mosque. We wandered together, Michael usually clutching my hand and refusing to let go, admiring the goods of vendors. We ducked into a supposed restaurant (which was closed and reeked of cleaning solution like turpentine) and stayed only long enough to use their hole-in-the-floor bathroom (I learned to always carry my own toilet paper and hand sanitizer on this trip). We finally ended up in a larger shop where SC and KW bought wine glasses and a pashmina; I also lowered my slime-o-meter detector for once as one of the shop’s employees, Mohammed, kindly chatted us up, displayed the shop’s items, and led us to a standing-room-only restaurant for food. Turns out Mohammed is engaged to a young woman from South Dakota and he enjoyed sharing his stories, a cigarette with Michael, and opinion on Kuwaitis (most other Middle Easterners view Kuwaitis as being lazy, entitled, and rather stuck up…hrmm…). By the end of all this scurrying, we shared a cab back (for a fifth of the price of the arrival trip) and passed out from sheer exhaustion.
Alright, part two to be posted as soon as possible…sleepy time for me.
xoxo
Abby & Michael
Posted: September 23, 2009 / 11:50 (ish) p.m.
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