Next stop, Amman, Jordan

Sunday, September 22nd

Catching up with some blog posts now that we’ve got some semblance of wifi. Pics still not loading but will try later.

We left our cute little boutique hotel in Tel Aviv, where we had a short stay, at 5:00 am to get to the airport for our 8:30 am flight. The flight itself took only 25 minutes and we landed at the very modern and efficient airport in Amman, Jordan. We had been given the option by our travel agent to fill out a bunch of forms and give the Jordanian embassy our passports for 3 days to get a visa, or to purchase it at the airport. Since we had lots of time upon our arrival in Jordan we opted to wait. It took all of 2 minutes to get the visa at arrivals before passport control. We hadn’t even gotten to passport control when a tour company representative sent by G Adventures met us to help us through passport control. It was an easy process taking only a couple of minutes, and we arrived at the baggage area to find our suitcases already on the belt. Outside of the baggage claim area our G Adventures contact was waiting for us to take us to our hotel where thankfully our room was ready for us. It took all of about 10 minutes including a bathroom stop.

On the way to our hotel, our driver told us that a lot of students from the other Arabic countries come to Amman for language and religious studies and judging by the number of colleges and universities we saw along the highway we could believe that. He also told us that tourism is growing rapidly since Petra was named as one of the new 7 wonders of the world 6 year ago. Since Jordan has no oil they rely on foreign investment and agriculture to feed the economy. Apparently more than 50% of the people work for the government or government institutions and unemployment is at 30% or so.

When we came through the new part of Amman on our way from the airport we were impressed with the cleanliness and beautiful houses and buildings of the new part of the city. Oh, and they have an IKEA.

Our hotel is located about a 15 minute walk from the old city, but the downside is that those 15 minutes are either up or down hill depending on your direction. Amman was originally built on 7 hills and as it expands it’s taking up more and more of the hillsides.

We kept it pretty simple today because of our lack of sleep, busy previous week, and anticipate busy week ahead.

This evening we met most of our group (4 will be arriving late tonight from Egypt and they will join up with us tomorrow), and it’s an eclectic group. A couple around my age from France but living in Liverpool, two from London living in the countryside now, a young man from Scotland, a young man from NYC, a young couple from NYC, and a young man from London. Our guide Hakam seems to be much less serious than our other guides so the jury is still out on him.

After our introductory meeting we went out for a welcoming dinner at a popular spot called Hashem Restaurant. We had pita with falafel, hummus, and a bunch of dips and made a meal out of it, all for $5 US each. Then we went on a short walk of the old city to take in the atmosphere and see the Roman coliseum. We didn’t go in because we’ll see a similar one in Jerash tomorrow.