My OneWorld Around The World Trip: Amman, Jordan

Alas! We did not see the Dead Sea Scrolls. In fact, truth be told, we did not see much in Jordan at all. The ride to the hotel was a nice view of the city and the newest road, coming in, but it was after dark, so we did not really see much of the land. Amman was formerly Philadelphia in ancient times, our driver told us, and he showed us the locations of several embassies and other notable buildings as we drove into town. When we got in, we were two hours later than we would have been in Rome, so the day was already pretty much shot. When we arrived at the hotel, We got settled in at the hotel and enjoyed the view of the old city, and the pool area. There was a lively wedding party in progress, so we had fun watching that for a little while, and ate dinner at the hotel.

In the morning, we both found we were really completely worn out, so we decided to skip the planned morning at the Amman Museum before the next hop over the Jordan River to Tel Aviv, and slept late. The many nights of late evenings and early mornings finally caught up with us, but this was a great opportunity to rest up again for the major week ahead. Although we missed the Dead Sea Scrolls, I was not too disappointed. I have heard the museum is not much to “write home about”, and in fact, I do not need to see them to appreciate what they mean anyway. So, we spent a leisurely morning at the hotel, and whisked back off to the airport again in the afternoon. Nice and easy!

A couple of small observations…

First, we had some minor mixup at the airport, since the information I found on the Internet said we could pay the entrance tax by credit card, but in fact, the machine was not working, and they required cash. We had to convert to Jordanian Dinar at the money changer in the airport, using up most of the cash we had taken in advance in Israeli Shekels, since we had no other currency. So that was a bit of a waste, bad exchange rate and all… But no biggie, and otherwise, no blips in the transfer…

Also, at the hotel, we had to pass through airport style security with scanners and metal detectors. That was interesting. Better safe than sorry though!

Checking out, we saw a stereotypical scene as though right out of a movie – an Arab Sheik in his white robe and head covering and sandals cursing at his staff over some annoyance on check-in, angrily smoking a cigarette in the middle of the check-in area, where it was clearly non-smoking. The hotel desk attendants were very nervously doing everything they could to try to accommodate whatever whim had not been satisfied. It was interesting to see!

So, with that, we were back at the airport, had no problems checking in for the flight to Tel Aviv, and were soon up in the air. We never even reached cruising altitude, normally about 37,000 feet, since the flight was only 50 miles! We barely got up to 8000 feet and had a drink and then we were descending again. The cars and roads never even got hard to see! It was a beautiful site to watch the vast dessert below us as we left Amman, and see how the stark landscape of mountainous hills gave way to the Great Rift Valley, then became greener as we passed over the Jordan, and then finally bustling and hi-tech as we approached Tel Aviv, a thoroughly modern city. We had great views of the Mediterranean again, and many interesting things from the air.