15. Amman to the Dead Sea (and New Years Eve in Amman). 1/1/23

Greetings and Happy 2023

Last night’s birthday / New Year’s Eve dinner at Fakhreldin (Amman) didn’t disappoint. Getting to the restaurant was interesting; we actually took a hotel taxi as opposed to a local taxi, sine it was clear that getting close to the hotel was going to be complicated if drivers didn’t have appropriate “access” to get into various streets around the downtown area. The 10-minute drive took about 30 minutes with a lot of U-turns and bypassing normal routes to avoid traffic and street closures. By the way, started the meal with Arak – a translucent, unsweetened aperitif that is anise flavored; good and strong. Alcohol is far more prevalent here in Jordan than it was in Egypt, although the wine selection is generally thin. Jordan wine is not to our liking so we’ve been sticking with South African cabs and various Italian wines that they offer.

Fakhreldin is in a house built in the middle of the last century and is one of the oldest houses in the neighborhood. It is set back from the street and like other impressive houses built for the wealthy, was designed to overlook the street and passersby. We were at the restaurant at midnight and by the time the revelry ended, and we reached our hotel it was after 2:00 am. We crashed.

This morning we left our “marvelous” room. When we checked into the hotel four or five days ago, the receptionist told us we were upgraded to a “marvelous” room, even though we had booked “only” a “spectacular” room (they really use these terms). We laughed and asked—purely out of curiosity– if there was something even better than marvelous, or what the other categories were, and we were told there were also “magnificent” rooms. Anyway, given that we didn’t sleep much and that we knew it would take time to get our rental car (our plan was to drive straight to Petra—about 4 hours south of Amman), we made what I think was a smart decision: we would stay overnight at the Dead Sea tonight, and drive on to Petra tomorrow (Monday), get there by early afternoon and stay one night instead of two nights, and leave Petra on Wednesday, mid-day, as planned.

We picked up our rental car (Sixt) at the Amman Airport and that was a scene. The car is several years old and has lots of dents and scratches. The guy who checks out the car to note all the damages was circling every part of the diagram, and then he said—“a typical Middle East car.” So, I don’t think there will be any problem if we add a few more scratches. They also take an advance, refundable deposit—in case you get any traffic tickets while driving the car.

And then we were off. The rental car place gave us a little Wi-Fi hotspot gizmo that we plugged into the USB slot and that enabled us to get a strong GPS signal. Since we now had only about an hour’s drive to the Dead Sea, we decided to take a small road as opposed to the Sahara Desert “Highway.” We drove on pretty bumpy, rocky roads and went to Madaba, an ancient town with a population of about 60,000. It dates to the Middle Bronze Age and was ruled by the Romans and Byzantine empires from the 2^nd to the 7^th centuries; it has a large Christian population. We drove through narrow, dirt streets to get to the top of the hill and parked so that we could walk to the St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church which is known for its incredible mosaics. The church itself is pretty modest and only about 150 years old. But when they were building the church, construction workers came across the remnants of a Byzantine church. Among the rubble the flooring that was discovered wasn’t just an ordinary mosaic. It was the oldest map of Palestine and scholars say it provided many historical insights into the region. The map dates to 560 AD and depicts major biblical sites in the region. There are also many other mosaics throughout the church.

From Madaba we continued on this older, smaller road – through lots of rubble — until we eventually joined in with the “highway” and found our way to the Kempinski Ishtar hotel right on the Dead Sea. After checking in and getting our room, we walked down to the water (naturally we don’t have bathing suits with us, since we never find ourselves in ‘resort-like’ settings) and surveyed the massive hotel grounds that meander and meander. We stopped for a snack in one of the three restaurants on site. When we checked in, they said there was an Italian restaurant, a Lebanese restaurant, and an ‘international’ restaurant. We stopped at what we believed to be the Italian one. We asked the waiter, but he said (in limited English) that this used to be an Italian restaurant but was now Mediterranean. We sat and looked at the menu which was all pastas and pizzas. We also asked about the International restaurant, but he said that was now Mexican (?) In any case, there are Italian, Lebanese, and “international” restaurants on site. We decided on Lebanese for dinner, and it was fine. 

There is a big spa here with many different offerings. Most likely we will try something out when we return for one night, after Petra. I figure I’ll be in need of a good massage by then. 

For those of you who were shocked that we were driving ourselves—the roads are good, it’s not crazy driving as it is in the cities, and we’re glad we’ve got the independence to come and go as we please and to stop whenever we want. We’ve driven in far more complicated situations in other countries. So, unless it gets more difficult as we get to Petra, I think it will be fine.

All the best for 2023 and beyond.

Fern