We’re now in the initial stages of the Jordan leg of this Middle Eastern jaunt and already we’ve noticed the pace being wound back a notch although everyone is still looking forward to trashing their alarm clocks. The casualty list is becoming more extensive as we rampage through the historical sites of the land of the Ammonites which, incidentally were, when I did geology and still are I guess, coil shelled cephalopods. I’m starting to understand how Alexander the Great’s army felt after a long campaign. More like extinct shellfish than people from Amman I’m guessing.
Our tour bus is like a giant petri dish at the moment and has been for about a week but not in a good, penicilliny way. There’s nothing funny about being in a bus full of people constantly heaving their lungs up like they’ve been breathing in the Dead Sea. I think that also includes some of the people who still insist on wearing masks. Someone should tell them. They probably still think lock-downs work and ivermectin is only for horses.
I was reminded of Athens and Rome when we were in Amman. You’d hardly be able to scratch the surface without digging up some ancient artefact so forget about digging an underground rail system. There’s a lot of housing development going on at the moment because they have a lot of spare land so instead of going up (5 stories max) they go out. A lot of land is being released so property developers obviously don’t run the local councils and state governments like they do in Australia. So regarding cultural heritage, I was about to ask our local guide how a landowner goes about building a house that needs minor excavations to level the land, say. Before he could answer, the squad turned up and in an instant we were talking about putting cardamom in our coffee so I left.
The squad is a group of six very nice people who have not left each other’s sides for the whole trip. It’s like the Human Centipede without the disgusting bits. It’s like the people who religiously sit in the same seats in the restaurant or on the bus day in and day out and mostly only talk to each other. As I may have mentioned previously, that’s not me.
We’ve now moved forward a few of thousand years. Whilst in Egypt we did occasionally encounter the 300 year Greek period commencing with the first Greek monarch, Alexander the Great and ending with the last (funnily enough), Cleopatra. But mostly we were firmly in the varios dynasties commencing over 5000 years ago and featuring many kings called Ramses with Ramses 2 figuring prominently. In Jordan, it’s very much now the Roman era with Roman ruins and Christian history as well as more recent developments with their next door neighbour (not Saudi Arabia, the other one).
Speaking or recent history, we are now retracing the camel steps of Lawrence of Arabia. Like the Japanese did with Singapore in WWII, Lawrence and his Arabs took Aqaba from the rear. Maybe the rumors about him were true. Like Singapore, the guns were pointing out to sea and everyone knows that despite their monika “ships of the desert”, camels can’t swim. I guess if you live in the driest places on earth, it’s a skill that they would rarely have cause to exercise especially if you have a barrel of water or two strapped to your back. Okay, I’m not entirely telling the truth here because some, not all camels can swim. But a camel swimming would be about as natural and elegant as me on ice skates or the child bride on a balance beam.