Couchsurfing in Amman

Roman Ruins in Amman

I decided to try something new in Amman, the capital of Jordan: instead of staying at a hostel, I would stay with a local by couchsurfing. Before I left home, I contacted a German expat living in Amman named Selmo, and he offered his couch... or more precisely a mattress on his floor. He gave me directions, and when I arrived in Amman I found his house. His French roommate let me in, gave me tea, and said, "So you're Brendon, from California, yes?"

"Yeah, from San Francisco."

"Yes. The Yoga instructor."

(spits tea) "The what?"

"Yoga instructor. We've all been waiting for you!"

"Oh... uh... I'm not a Yoga instructor... "

"You're not? You mean you don't know Yoga?"

"No... "

"Oh. We were going to have you host a lesson on our roof... guess it's a good thing we didn't invite everyone we had planned... "

Luxury Hotel in Amman

So it sounded like a bad start. But Selmo bought me some Sufi music tickets for the night and I got to see a bit of Amman. Amman is another huge city, but infinitely calmer than Cairo. Whereas Egypt feels like the developing world, Jordan feels like the developed world. The cars are modern and follow some semblance of traffic laws. The streets are clean and the city is just quieter.

Mosque in Amman

Amman is built on several hills, somewhat like San Francisco but the hills are rockier and more dramatic, creating some great vistas. It was originally inhabited by the Romans, for whom the climate and hills were reminiscent of Rome. Amman, too, was supposedly built on seven hills.

Supposedly world's largest freestanding flag

But what struck me most about Amman was its connections with the United States. All types of US government agencies have offices there, and I met heaps of American students studying Arabic. I've most the most Iowans in my life in Amman. Selmo's roommate was from Des Moines; on the bus I met a guy from Iowa and two girls from Chicago and Oakland; at a restaurant the people behind us were from Minnesota. The place is oozing with midwesterners.

Jordanians would stop me on the street, ask if I were American, and then tell me all about how they lived in the US! I found one Jordanian who had lived in Walnut Creek, and when we got lost in the small town of Ajlun in the north, the fruit store we happened to walk into was run by a Jordanian who had lived in Texas!

Add to this mix Palestinian and Iraqi refugees (some of them quite well educated and wealthy, others taxi drivers [I had an interesting time explaining to a Palestinian taxi driver that I needed to catch the bus to Israel... ]) and Israeli tourists and you create a very interesting place.

Ajlun Castle

I took a day trip to the north of Jordan with an Aussie girl and a Canadian girl and another American guy to visit the fortress of Ajlun and the Roman ruins at Jerash. Ajlun is fewer than 10 miles from the West Bank and fewer than 20 miles from Syria! The castle was built by the nephew of the great Muslim warrior Saladin to counter the Crusader castle in Tiberias, and after the Crusades it was destroyed by the Mongols (you know, those nomads from the steppes of Mongolia, that country way over to the north of China). This area was home to great Biblical kingdoms. While much of Jordan is desert, the north is green and brilliant in spring. Ajlun felt like Italy, with green hills, pine forests, and olive groves.

Northern Jordan in Spring

The ruins at Jerash were also cool, and if they were in Italy would be known world-wide. We went on a Friday (the day of prayer, and first day of the weekend) and found that all the locals go out to have barbeques next to the ancient temples!

Roman Ruins in Jerash

The next day we took an epic 3 car road trip to the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea. Imagine a small convoy with 3 Israelis (one Arab Israeli), one Syrian, one Lebanese, one French woman and German guy, two Americans, an Aussie and a Canadian bumpin' American rap (from the Kingdom's number one music station) and Michael Jackson down the Dead Sea highway within view of the West Bank.

We had to play musical cars to make sure the Syrian and Lebanese were in different cars than the Israelis, since it's illegal for Syrians and Lebanese to associate with Israelis. As there is a police checkpoint that checks passports, if word got back to the Syrian or Lebanese governments it would be bad news for them! (Jordan and Israel don't care, but you still don't want to take chances in this region).

The Dead Sea

We found a remote beach and got right in. It really is incredibly easy to float on the Dead Sea. You can literally sit legs crossed and just float, no effort at all. Salt was crusted all along the beach, and cut your feet on it when you got in the water. The Sea is receding a meter a year (the dead sea is dying) and so getting even saltier.

We found a nice patch of mud, and did as the locals do... covered our body in it, let it dry in the sun, rolled around in the sand and jumped back in (and yes, I do have photos of this).

Salt Crystals

Afterwards we hiked up a canyon fed by a warm water spring to wash all the salt off our bodies. We drove up to the top of the mountains during sunset, and from there you could make out the no-man's land between Israel and Jordan, see the Palestinian cities of the West Bank (especially Jericho) and easily see the lights of Jerusalem in the distance. This area of the world is incredibly small: we were fewer than 20 miles away from Jerusalem, but seeing it from a different world...