Well, my dear friends, we didn’t believe it would come, but here is the last installment of my Jordanian trip diary – but there is a little bit of news first. I’m working on my contribution to the Dreamstone Regency Christmas anthology – it’s a fun story on the theme of Reunions. The book should be out mid-November. I’ve been doing the Dreamstone Regency anthologies two times a year (Summer and Christmas) for years and I love doing it. There’s a core group of gifted Regency romance authors and the stories are always good!
However – even more important to me is my health. Most of you know that in late July I had two emergency surgeries to remove some potentially fatal blood clots. Not fun. Well, to the surprise of a number of doctors, I am doing well. What they call well. I’m still terribly weak and apparently a lot of my internal systems are all screwed up, but I’m alive, and that’s a good place to be. Apparently for a while it was questionable. I’m now ready to get better. This convalescent thing is not acceptable, even though my prime medico is very happy with it and says just to be patient. We all know how much patience is a part of my makeup, don’t we? Riiight….
And there is some good news. I have been invited (Heaven only knows why) to be listed in the Marquis Who’s Who – a biographical directory presenting unmatched coverage of today’s leaders and achievers in every significant field of endeavor since 1898. (Taken from their website) I don’t know who nominated me, or why, but I was delighted to accept, as the Marquis Who’s Who has been sort of a tradition in my family. My father was listed from the late 1940s until his death. My mother was listed from the early 1950s until she voluntarily withdrew when she retired. I have an uncle and two (somewhat remote) cousins who were listed in the mid-1970s and 1980s. And now me! To say I’m over the moon is an understatement. I’m still grinning!
And now to the main event – Finally here it is – the long-awaited final installment of the diary of my trip to Egypt and Jordan… and I’m sure much awaited by everyone. I really didn’t intend to go on so long, but it was all so fascinating. And you should see the things I left out…!
Our final stop was the Dead Sea, where we stayed two nights at the Kempinsky Hotel and Spa, which rates as the most elaborate place I have ever stayed in my entire life, though it was not the most expensive. (The Movenpick in Petra has that rather dubious honor…) The Kempinsky was comprised of several buildings and we were all housed in the main hotel part of it. There were smaller buildings where the accommodations were larger and more elaborate than our ‘standard’ sea view rooms, a clutch of free-standing apartment-like cabins, a central building housing several restaurants and Heaven only knows what else. Wide paved paths ran all over the place and there were golf carts available to ferry you wherever you wanted to go on the property. (Yes, it seems Jordan firmly believes in the principle of having golf carts for tourists in lots of places, one of the few things I would like Egypt to copy!)
Our room was large, oddly shaped – sort of like a thin wedge – and had a balcony overlooking the sea with a thick carved wooden grille that was supposed to open but didn’t and therefore sort of reminded one of a prison. In fact, for those of you who remember the old old old Patrick McGoohan British TV show THE PRISONER the Kempinski complex gives off the same ‘fantasy fantastic village vibe’, which I found interesting… and occasionally a little unnerving.
I have never before stayed in a hotel so large that I needed a golf cart to go to dinner! Most of our tour group walked whenever they were ready to dine, but by this time on the tour I was not so energetic and trying to conserve what faint blips of energy I had left. We would go to the lobby of our building, speak to the concierge and within two minutes a golf cart would appear to whisk us to the dining building where we had our choice of several restaurants. After the meal, we would speak to the headwaiter and usually by the time we had reached the ground floor a cart would be waiting. I loved it!
The first morning we set off for Jerash, one of the most splendid – and best preserved – cities in the Roman empire. The only bad thing was that the bus could get nowhere near the entrance to the city and there were no golf carts in sight. We not only had to traverse a ‘mall’ of vendors to get to the trail, and once there had to walk almost a kilometer to get to the city. At this point I was so profoundly exhausted – deep down to the bone exhausted – and I had bumped my knee several days before, which was very sharply letting me know of its displeasure, that I was the draggletail of the group. I didn’t even get to see the entire city before giving up and retreating to a nearby café where I gratefully sat in the shade sipping a canned concoction they assured me was exactly the same as Coca-Cola, which I don’t even like to begin with. It was, however, cool and wet and therefore wonderful.
Jerash is definitely worth seeing, and I am grateful that I saw as much as I did – Hadrian’s Arch (yes, that same Hadrian – he really got around), the Hippodrome where they held chariot races (think Ben-Hur) the oval plaza with the Temple of Zeus, the South Theater, which could seat over 3,000… Sadly I missed the Colonnaded Street, the Market Place and the Omayyad residential quarter, plus the 4th century Cathedral, St. Theodore’s Church, Nymphaeum (public fountain), the arches of the West Bath and the Temple of Artemis, plus several more.
Some have asked me why I took such a physically demanding trip when I am obviously old and not in the best of condition. The answer is simple – yes, I didn’t see everything, but I saw a lot of things I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. And I intend to continue traveling and seeing all that I can as long as I have breath in my body and the money to pay for it. I don’t care if I get super tired or hurt – I can rest painlessly in the grave, and hopefully that is a long time away. (Or never – I sometimes believe I’m still here because Heaven doesn’t want me and Hell is afraid I’ll take over.)
Returning to the bus was a painful process, and not only because of the distance. We still had to walk through the ‘mall’ of vendors, and it was rather like crossing a war zone. There were probably 20 vendors there, each with their own little space, and seemingly selling the exact same merchandise. On the way through to visit the site they were fairly calm for tourist vendors, merely inviting us to look at their wares, asking from where we came, asking us to promise that we would come back to shop with them, telling the ladies how nice they looked. That last was pure flattery, as we had been going without ceasing over the desert for days… Anyway, they obviously knew that no one would want to carry souvenirs (hopefully a lot of big expensive ones!) while walking through the site, so they didn’t attack.
When we returned from the site they did. I had left the site early so everyone wouldn’t have to wait for me, and I was alone when I walked into the mall. I’ve said we had little to no time for shopping and on the way out I had seen one or two little things I wanted to get even though we really aren’t big souvenir shoppers.
I had barely stepped into the big hall before they swarmed, as persistent and as annoying as a cloud of summer gnats. What was unnerving was that at that particular moment I was one of only three tourists in the place and the only one using a cane. They tried to herd me into their stores, some claiming that I had promised to come shop with them (I hadn’t) or that they would make me the best prices. One even took hold of my arm and tried to drag me in to his shop. I told him to release me and he wouldn’t, saying I would be glad to see his things. I whacked him on the leg with my cane. Not gently. I really am becoming a most terrible old lady.
Luckily his cohorts only laughed and began importuning me again.
Trailing vendors like the tail of a comet I finally found the store where I had seen the little metal camel-shaped box I wanted to get for my wonderful mother-in-law (who turned 100 a week after we got back!) and bought it. The others stayed quiet and a respectable distance away until I paid and turned to leave, then the assault began again. This time, though, it was diluted because a party of tourists had just returned from the site and a lot of the vendors went after the fresh blood instead of the mad old lady with a deadly cane.
I took advantage of the break and headed for the entrance, only to be stopped by a vendor holding up a really rather pretty embroidered traditional dress which he literally waved in front of my face. Had he behaved differently I might have been interested – it really was a very nice dress – but he was not selling, he was demanding I buy, and I didn’t like that. I kept walking determinedly toward the bus, but he followed me still waving the dress and only the intervention of the driver kept him from following me onto the bus itself.
I know the tourist industry is way down for some unknown reason, and I know times are hard, but these vendors need to know that Western tourists do not respond well to such high-pressure tactics. Most of us will walk away instead of buy when faced with such behavior, but there was no way to tell them this, especially when a rather pretty dress was being flapped against my nose.
From Jerash we went back to the hotel. A lot of our tour went for a dip in the Dead Sea and as he had never seen it Hiram wanted to see the Dead Sea, so as the beach was a long way from the hotel building we called for a golf cart. Even that couldn’t get really close to the cove set aside for bathing, as in the last 1/3 of the way there were two or three flights of stairs and a long slanting stretch of sand to get to the bathing area. Ever the military man, Hiram always walks a lot faster than I, so the sweet cart driver went down with me, shepherding me over the rough spots. I appreciated that, as this was the end of a very physical and exhausting trip and I was totally wrung out. Of course at the end I tipped him well.
After we got back up to the hotel building – with a small excursion to drive past parts of the hotel complex we had not yet seen (the whole place is more like a small town than a hotel) we showered, called for another golf cart (wonderful things!) and went over to the restaurant building for our final get-together. It was a bittersweet time; saying good-bye to our fellow travelers was difficult. This was our third trip with a great number of them, our second with others, and a few we had just met, which truly made us into a kind of family. We ate delicious food, laughed and talked and took pictures and (I at least) teared up a little when it was at last time to say the final good bye. Say what you will about social media, it is a blessing that with it we can stay in touch with family/friends even across the world, even in places as far-flung as Dallas, London, Spain, Wisconsin, Kyiv, Switzerland and others. It’s not the same as riding in a bus or crawling over rocks or seeing spectacular places together, but we do have the shared memories and affections.
A word about the food. Part of our tour package was breakfast and dinner included in our hotels – which was actually a savings out of our pockets. As for lunch… I told you this was a busy, constantly on the go tour, so busy that not once in the two weeks on the road did we ever stop to have lunch! Which, while good for the waistline, honed in us a skill for taking a couple of bits from the breakfast buffet and squirrelling them away in our backpacks! And the food on this trip was absolutely scrumptious – Jordanian food is both the same and different than the more familiar Egyptian dishes, though they pretty much have the same names. I can’t really tell you exactly how, but it was definitely different. Delicious, though.
After the farewell dinner was over we all sort of drifted back to our rooms, all suffering the sad letdown that comes when you know that something wonderful has ended and we must all go back to our regular lives. Starting that evening we all were taken to the airport according to our flight times. And the frustrations and alarums of flying in this day’s world.
At Petra Hiram had purchased a beautiful heirloom-quality dagger and most correctly put it in his to-be-checked bag, which didn’t make any difference. When the security people caught sight of it on the x-ray screening they jumped on the bag like terriers, digging through it as if in search of something valuable. (Well, considering what he paid for it, it was definitely valuable!) He had also purchased a heavy hand-forged iron lock in the shape of a camel and about the size of a baseball. I don’t think that the small crowd of security men missed one centimeter of the interior of that bag, even to the extent of unzipping the lining and feeling the surface of the shell. Finally they admitted that he had nothing unacceptable – though one security man stayed with the bag until we checked it in and turned it over to the airline. (Just to brag a bit, Hiram also purchased me a fantastically delicate shawl/stole – made of camel hair (!) it is light and airy and fragile and 95% of the surface is covered with an explosion of exquisitely embroidered multi-colored flowers, which contrast deliciously with the blue fabric. The customs men ignored that.)
Nor was I immune. The x-ray man had almost had a meltdown over my cane (an ugly but useful thing that unfolds to a seat and a tripod on which you can sit – uncomfortable but refreshing) swearing that it was a weapon. (I didn’t tell him about using it to swat that importunate vendor at Jerash!) I had to unfold it and turn it into its ‘chair state’ and make him sit on it before he calmed down, and that was only at the order of his superior.
When I saw them digging through Hiram’s suitcase I was terrified. He is a very orderly packer. Things are rolled and folded and put in in order. On a trip home I am a crammer – just grab things, throw them in the bag any which way and cram them down until I can get the lid to close. For a moment I had horrid fantasies of them opening the suitcase and being buried in an explosion of dirty clothes. Thankfully, however, they just asked me if I had anything dangerous and then on my denial passed me through. I guess being an innocent-looking older lady has its perks!
Our route home was from Amman to Chicago to DFW and this was our first time – and probably our last – to fly Royal Jordanian Airlines. It was okay – no trip lasting 7-10 hours crammed into a seat designed to fit an anorexic ten year old is ever anything more than okay – and it was definitely Jordanian… but there was nothing royal about it. The food was at best so-so and the interior of the cabin was downright shabby. It flew, though, and apparently safely, so I have no real complaints.
Of O’Hare in Chicago I cannot say anything that is suitable for public pixilation. Like Frankfurt in Germany it is definitely one of the Seven Circles of Hell. I remember almost nothing of the American flight from O’Hare to DFW, but after 20+ hours of traveling I was more than a little punchy. Thankfully as we had not been flying Lufthansa or United we had no fears of our luggage being taken (which it had been on our last two trips on those benighted airlines) and there was no problem besides the ordinary annoyances of dealing with luggage in the middle of a mob scene. We had a little trouble retrieving our car from long-term parking – well, it was in the wee hours of the morning – but once inside Princess (my car’s name) and on the way home life brightened considerably. We drove home without incident, and thankfully our house was just as we had left it. We opened the door, dropped the bags inside, locked the door and went to sleep for three days straight. Our grand adventure was over.
Did we enjoy it? Yes, of course. Would we do it again? Jordan maybe – but not the same trip we just took, Petra and Wadi Rum excepted, and definitely not at the same breakneck pace. But feel free to ask me again next year…
Well, that is the end of my tale. I really didn’t mean it to be so long, but even so I left out a lot of the good stuff. It was a wonderful, informative, exhausting and fascinating. I am so grateful for everything I saw and did. One more thing – I truly did not mean to start a book set in Jordan. I already have more projects lined up that I can shake a stick at and adding another would be madness. So… I promised myself that I would just be a tourist and not a researcher.
Yeah. Right.
Its name is THE PETRA PROBLEM and it’s fully plotted. Don’t know when I’ll be able to get it ready to publish, but I’ll let you know.
One other thing – those of you who have slogged through some of my previous trip diaries might have noticed the dearth of fun, quirky and unusual things that usually happen when I’m on a trip. Well, there weren’t any (or many) and not because I didn’t want them… the simple reason is that there wasn’t any time to do much of anything except walk long distances, push on to the next site, try to conquer exhaustion while on the bus and try to keep up with the group and not collapse. I’m glad I did this trip, but I’ll never do another with all this pressure and push-push-push. And, judging from what I have heard from my fellow travelers, they won’t either. In a way that is sad, because there is so much to see in that part of the world (any part of the world, I suppose) that to do it at a decent pace would take more time and money that probably any of us have. It’s a balancing act, and no matter what you do you still want more.
That said, we just received an email outlining Fearless Leader’s proposed trip to Turkey next year, over which I sat and drooled. I haven’t been to Turkey since the early 90s, and I love it. One notable thing – according to the proposed itinerary there is a much more leisurely pace with time built in just for enjoying … and shopping. Apparently I was not the only one anamadversifying against the frantic pace of this last trip. Of course, this is only the first glimmer – we don’t know if the trip will make, if world events will permit it or (most importantly) if we will be able to afford it. Stay tuned…
