| Arriving in the middle of the Middle East, in Amman, the capital city of Jordan, is a lot like being invited to a house party where several of the guests from the neighbourhood are having a fight. Thankfully the host remains calm, collected, and even downright polite.
This tiny country, about the size of the state of New Jersey, officially called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, remains a source of hope in a region that is burdened by deadly conflict between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples.
I was invited, along with a group of journalists from across Canada, on a press tour of Jordan intended to bring attention to a new exhibition at the Glenbow Museum – Petra: The Lost City of Stone – as well as help raise awareness about the kingdom as a destination for would-be visitors. Implicit in this agreement is that journalists on such "familiarization tours" receive a free airline ticket, accommodation and food while touring around and looking at the sites in exchange for writing nice things about the places they visit.
In my case I had no ethical dilemma about accepting the trip, because I knew I would write about my experience "warts and all." I also paid my own way to New York City – no small feat as a full-time freelance writer – before departing on Royal Jordanian Airlines for Amman, a city 11 hours and a world away.
Nicknamed "the white dove" because so much of it is built from sandstone, Amman is a city that is often overlooked by travellers because it has become so westernized. Yet I found its Islamic soul still very much intact during early morning walks, when the first of five calls to prayer wafts over the city from the mosques beginning at 5:30 a.m.
"Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar," goes the call – "Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest."
On one corner of this metropolis of nearly two million people are modern buildings being constructed from aluminum and steel, and on the hill above the city, known as the Citadel, sit Byzantine and Roman ruins dating back thousands of years. Look up, walk around the corner, or scratch the surface of Jordan and you will be confronted by history that spans not centuries, but millennia.
Our guide on this trip through time was Ali, a proud 36-year-old Jordanian who attended university in the U.S. Heading out of Amman on our tour bus for the first leg of our journey he summed up Jordan better than any guide book ever will: "It is a liberal place, but it’s conservative."
Arriving in Jerash, a Roman city that one member of our group described as "having better ruins than in Rome," is a reminder that what’s authentic will always win over attractions designed for tourists.
The attraction portion of the visit is courtesy of a former pharmaceutical industry executive from Sweden, who has realized his dream of using the ancient hippodrome at Jerash just as it had been used during the Roman occupation of the area beginning in 64 BC. A hippodrome – an open-air course for chariot racing – was also the site of much killing by the Romans of their slaves for public entertainment. On the day we visited there were no chariot races, just a bunch of former (slightly embarrassed) Jordanian police and army officers dressed in period costumes, acting out a cheesy piece of theatre that ought to "Stockholm" with its creator.
Moving on to the ruins of Jerash itself, visitors will not be disappointed by a site that includes some of the finest examples of Roman architecture in the world. Highlights include the colonnaded street, which is lined by magnificent pillars and marked by ruts in the stone road where Roman chariots once travelled.
The contradictory nature of Jordan is once again evident at our next stop, Petra. This is the rose-coloured jewel in the crown of Jordan’s tourism industry. An ancient city punctuated by stunning red, pink and rose edifices carved out of the mountains by the Nabataean people in the sixth century BC, Petra is also a place where tacky souvenir shops, such as the Titanic Gift Shop, sell everything from handmade rugs to Amstel beer.
The competing interests between conserving history and marketing it are at the heart of modern Jordan. A Middle Eastern country without oil, it must find other sources of cash. Beyond its strong ties to the U.S., from which it has received more than $4 billion in aid since 1952, its best hope is tourism.
As Jordan’s number one industry, tourism is expected to bring in revenues of more than $1.4 billion this year. While North American tourists stopped coming immediately after the 9-11 attacks in the U.S., Jordan has recently experienced an increase in visitors from other Gulf States, with Saudi Arabians making up about 60 per cent of all its tourists. And, surprisingly, 12 per cent of its total visitors come from Israel.
What these tourists flock to see is Petra – a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a place captured by director Steven Spielberg in his film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. These days you won’t spot any fedora-wearing archeologists, just hundreds of tourists and what seems to be an equal number of locals transporting them around the site on donkeys, carts and camels – modes of transportation that the members of our group chose to forgo in favour of trekking.
The people moving this glut of humanity are mostly Bedouin, known as Bedoul, who, until the 1980s, had inhabited the caves and cliffs in Petra for centuries. After Petra was declared a World Heritage Site in 1985, the Bedoul people were displaced by the Jordanian government to a nearby town called Umm Sayhun.
Although it wasn’t on the official itinerary, I visited the Bedouin village early one morning before our bus departed for the next destination. Where in Petra tourists are urged by the Bedoul people to buy cheap jewelry, in the village of Umm Sayhun, the same Bedoul people welcomed me into their homes for tea.
Sixteen-year-old Abdallah explained to me that he lives with his family of 15 in their one-room cinder-block house – complete with a television and DVD player – and makes his living in Petra with his donkey. When I asked how 15 people can sleep in such a small room, he pointed outside and said that many of the members of his family still prefer to sleep outside, just as they had done before being moved out of Petra.
As I left the village, the sight of a small boy herding goats at one end of town and satellite dishes popping from the roofs of the homes in the other direction offered further proof of a society struggling to bridge two very different worlds.
From here, we moved on to Wadi Rum, the desert area where, in 1917, T.E. Lawrence lived and was involved in an Arab-led revolt against the Turks who controlled the region as part of the Ottoman Empire. Lawrence and his exploits, which continue to cause much debate, are forever mythologized in the David Lean film Lawrence of Arabia.
The opportunity to spend time in the vast desert area of Wadi Rum, a land punctuated by huge rock formations that at times look like stacks of pancakes, was an experience that left me gobsmacked. It’s easy to understand why the nomadic Bedouin people – some of who still inhabit the area – never wanted to leave. Wadi Rum is to Jordan what the Grand Canyon is to the U.S. or the Rockies to Canada. Majestic and mysterious, it fills the eyes and the imagination.
We then made our way to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth at more than 400 metres below sea level. Because of its high salt content, the sea – a 65-kilometre-long lake – keeps you buoyant while in the water. As you will often hear from locals, "You cannot sink!"
The Dead Sea’s other drawing point is its mud, which, because of its mix of minerals, is said to benefit the skin. Tourists pay hundreds of dollars for treatments at one of the many large hotels and resorts that dot this area. Those in the know, or on a budget, head straight to the beach, where the hotels put out buckets of mud, allowing you to slather yourself in Dead Sea goodness for free.
With archeological evidence of civilizations dating back 10,000 years, Jordan is a trip back in time. Knowing full well this is its greatest asset, the government – now guided by King Abdullah, the eldest son of the late King Hussein, who died from cancer in 1999 – is intent on marketing Jordan as a reformist country that welcomes all.
An ancient land wed to its past but embracing the future, Jordan is a complex swirl of contradictions and riddles that left me enchanted, perplexed and humbled. |
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