Friday morning I left Amman bright and early at 7am with Nick and Jennifer. We found a taxi who, after some arguing from Nick, was willing to take us to Jerash for 15 JD ($20 ish for a 45-minute ride). We bypassed the ticket office somehow and went right in through Hadrian's Gate and the hippodrome. Once we got to the main part of the city there was a gate where they wanted to check our tickets. Whoops. Clearly we're not the only ones to have that problem, since there are two entrance to the complex(?) itself and the ticket office is a 5-10 minute walk from the actual entrance to the city. So we doubled back, bought tickets, walked back again, and finally got in. There was a sign by the ticket office that reminded everyone,
"Be sure that you got your tickets."
We wandered into the amphitheatre, where the acoustics were amazing. Which they're supposed to be, but it was still cool to experience. I just realized Jerash was my third set of Roman ruins but the first two amphitheatres I'd been in. Cool. Anyway. At one point I was at the top of the theatre and Nick was on stage. He started reciting Shakespeare and I could make out every word perfectly. It's so crazy that they figured how to do that so long ago. Here's the video. It's a little hard to hear on my camera, but you can kinda make it out.
And here's me in the amphtheatre.
We wandered more after that and saw more old things. As we were walking Jennifer realized she was hearing Amazing Grace on bagpipes from somewhere. Way off in the distance we saw people in the hippodrome and we're pretty sure that's where it was coming from. I tried recording it and if you listen closely about halfway through the video, you can kind of hear it. It's not Amazing Grace at this point, but some song I've heard a lot. On bagpipes. Maybe at parades? Not sure.
From there we went to the Sanctuary of Artemis. Nick jumped down a hole that maybe used to be a well? And came out the side via a tunnel. Apparently if you climb back up the hole you get a free ring or something. (The Bedouin guy who jumps in the hole first was selling souvenirs and water and stuff. "Authentic" jewelry, I'm sure. Also in the video you can hear Jennifer talking to the two tourist police guys who were sitting there drinking water or tea or something.)
One of the columns of the temple moves with the wind. It's freaky. Watch the spoon.
After that we made our way to the second amphitheatre. Except we took the hard way. As in, we climbed down hills of loose dirt and walked across old stone and I think we were actually walking across the top of the walls of the stage. At one point the stones were barely wide enough for a foot and there was nothing to grab onto and I completely froze. It was scary. I didn't even think I was going to be able to backtrack, but I did. I definitely thought at one point that I would wind up just standing there forever. It didn't help that all the stuff in my backpack was moving around and throwing me off balance. Woo, I'm crazy. But we found a better way around and chilled in the shade of the theatre for a time. As we were going out the door carved in the hill (told you we took the hard way), we passed a group of Americans. I said hi. One guy asked if I was from Boston and I just stared at him. I knew I didn't say anything with an accent so I had no idea how he knew. And then it dawned on my I was wearing my Sox hat. I am so awesome.
We made our way out from there, down the colonnade and past a whole bunch of tourists who were just entering the city. It was pretty awesome; we'd gotten there around 8 am and were done by 10:15 ish. We started to walk to the bus station to take a microbus to Ajloun when this random guy stopped his pickup and was like "Ajloun?" And he said he'd take us there for 4 JD. So we agreed. And it wound up being him and two other Jordanian guys in the front seat and one plus Nick, me, and Jennifer in the back. It reminded me so much of grand taxis in Morocco. It was riduclous and awesome though. We just kept sitting there like "Is this really happening? Are we really doing this right now?" And yes, yes we were. The other three guys eventually got out and Nick moved up to the front seat. Ajloun wound up being farther than we expected.
The ticket office of the castle is at the base of the really steep hill, so we bought our tickets and got back in Mohammad's truck and he drove us up. And he waited for us so he could take us back to Amman for 15 JD (cheaper than a taxi and less hassle than finding a bus!). It took us under a half hour to make our way through the entire castle. Though Mohammad came in looking for us.
Looking like a goof in the castle.
We left the castle just after noon, and we were hungry. We asked Mohammad where the best food in Ajloun was that we could get to go. And in typical Middle Eastern fashion, we wound up at his cousin's restaurant. And got shawarma. And it wasn't to go. But whatever, it was tasty. Then we stopped at a pastry shop across the street and got knafeh (sp?). I have no idea what it was but it was so good. The finally we were on our way back to Amman. On the way he took it upon himself to be our tour guide, pointing out different kinds of trees on the side of the road, pointing out a huge Palestinian refugee camp, making us take pictures of a lake/river/something. It was a special experience. We got back to ACOR sometime between 2 and 230. It was a great day because we got so much done and in such a short time.
After taking a nap I went downstairs to hang out. Jennifer and I kept saying we wanted to go out to a cafe somewhere but never wound up actually going, and then it was too late to go. So we just stayed there and talked to people. It was a pretty great day and I was pleased. Except that I was really tired but was still dumb and didn't go to bed until around midnight that night even though I had to get up at 6 the next morning. Whoops.
Here's Mohammad's truck. Parked on the side of the road when he wanted us to get out and take pictures of the landscape.
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