Wadi Mujab

I am back from my trip in Jordan, the eyes still full of nice scenaries, places and peoples. On the picture you can contemplate wadi mujab, a 1000m deep gorge in the middle of the desert with a dam.

Before crossing the gorge I was at Madaba and mount Nebo doing like every tourist, watching the various mosaics. My next stop was in Kerak, the famous fort of the infamous Renault de Chatillon. Noone forgets to remind you how refined were the french at that period. The fort is on top a high cliff and has high walls (in some areas the castle is 7 stages high so 20m). And one of local customs was to throw prisoniers from the top of the walls, nothing fancy you'd tell, besides the fact they were putting their heads in wooden boxes so they would still be councious when they reach the bottom of the moutain after numerous bounces. The golden age of our culture I tell you. Kerak is so big it is itself a small city. The travel there was pretty long but I really enjoy the desert.

The next days I was in Amman and visiting the desert castles near the Saoudian and Iraki borders.

...

Well I feel lazy for now so you'll know later :). 

Jerash, Ajloun and Pella

I'm continuing my trip here in northern Jordan, after haveing been waken up about 10 times by muezzins that weren't on time (or there is something new about making 10 prayers in the middle of the night :).
I realize while waking up that I did two mistakes yesterday (proper french word being gaffe). I was pretty tired as well as hungry and thursty in the Taxi yesterday so I asked to stop in a place for drink. I knew it was Ramadan, but for one day I forgot it. He finaly found a place on the road side and I ate lafa, humus and olive oil in the middle of a Palestinian refugee camp right in the middle of Ramadan. It was probably not too bad because I had lots of smiles and few or none angry faces (and I usually notice them because I am watching a lot).
The seond one is when heading for Um Qais my driver showed me something in the opposite direction and said "Bella". It took me a night to remember that B and P are the same thing in arabic and that he was offering me to make a small detour to visit Pella. Anyway I visited it today.

So Jerash is quite impressive, it was realy a giant roman city (cf Jordan tourism ministry for history and stuff), I caught the usual nose sunburn, and ended up buying a "bob". Then Ajloun, it is the best conserved medieval fort I have seen in the area, it was the arabic side castle opposed to Belvoir I visited a few months ago. Really a nice place, especially that they let you climb everywhere and if you're adventurous enough you can see nice additional places. I really enjoyed it as you guess. Finally, there isn't much remaining of Pella, outside of a few columns near a source and a nice oasis. The interresting part of it is that I took the "free entrance" as advised by my taxi driver (a hole in the fence:).

PS: Little game, there is something very surprising on the Jordan tourism website. I'll give a special price to whoever finds.
PPS: For those that were wondering, I am traveling alone and in a taxi :), but with a map.

Umm Qais and Irbid

This morning I left home to go for a short trip in northern Jordan. I passed the border crossing in Bet Shean pretty quickly and took a taxi to Irbid. On the way I stopped at Umm Qais (Gadara), it was a pretty nice visit, I ll post pictures when back home. Now I am roaming in the streets of Irbid and stopped by in a cyber to post news. Taxi here is still pretty scary, this afternoon we dodged a crash by almost nothing and the driver got agressed physically by another unhappy driver. Finaly driving in Cairo was amost quiet and gentle.

Megiddo

Today I woke up almost early and went on a trip to visit Megiddo city ruins (Tel Meggido Israeli national park). Mount Megiddo (Har Megiddo in hebrew) is known in the Bible as Armageddon (the wikipedia entries are great on both subjects). On the picture you can see the entrance to the city, built during the reign of King Salomon (~3000 years ago).
Two things impressed me during the visit, the first one is that the hill is actually half artificial, most of the height coming from 26 layers of cities built starting more than 6000 years ago (some archeologists even talk about remains aging back to 10000 BC).
The second one is the effort that was put in the water system. On top of the hill there is a gigantic hole (roughly 40m deep counting the steps down) followed by a 70m horizontal tunnel getting out on the side of the hill in a hidden place where was located the local water source.
The scenary from there is fantastic, you overlook the Jezreel valley, and also have a great view on Mount Gilboa, Mount Tabor and Nazareth. I'll try to create a panorama from my pictures and will post it on my flickr.
On my way back I decided to take the mountain road passing through Dalyat Al Karmel, and ended up being pretty happy about that choice. It was olive harvest time, I stopped near an olive tree field and ate some Druze pita with labane and za'atar under the shade of a green oak, tasting this year's olives, chatting, drinking coffee and playing backgammon with the harvesters.

I finished the trip at the Mushraka to watch the sun setting down on mount Karmel.

Akko Festival 2005

As last year I went to the first evening of Akko festival. Last year it was full of concerts, street theatres and other forms of art demonstrations, as well as filled everywhere with people selling good food, so I enjoyed it a lot.

Unlike last year my car was stopped by the Police 1.5km before the center of Akko and sent to an out-of-town parking lot where shuttle were supposed to bring me to the old city. After a few traffic jams and lots of police barrage (4 that I can think of), I finaly end up on that parking lot, and start to wait on the shuttle line. When I realise that there is 15 min waiting and that I'll have to pay I just decide to do the walk.

The moon was full or almost, and the night was beautyfull, reasonably fresh and dry for here. Soon after I pass another police barrage to enter the festival, it looks super crowded, I start to be excited so I head to all the places in the moat and in the squares where the action took place last year ... to find these places deserted. I keep on searching, and outside of food merchants (still a lot but not as many) I barely find 1 or 2 guys playing some music. I head to the bazar where local artists were exposing work, ... I pass yet another police barrage and nada, empty.

Streets are full of bored people, there is nothing to be seen, nothing to do besides buying food or other stuff... I was pretty disappointed, and when I talk with Octavio he tells me there has been a lot more people visiting than last year but it seems the only 2 areas where there is some demonstration are paying areas with fixed time spectacles. It was enough, I go around my beloved streets of Akko, buy some bread and some Ramadan cakes (the semoul ones filled with date paste) and head back home.

I hope the next days are going to be better than that because there are 1000s of cops deployed, lots of organisation, lots of visitors, but yet anything attractive to be seen :(.



PS: On the picture above you can enjoy the view of a bunch of bored people.

Banias

I took advantage of the vacations here to go spend some time in the Galil and around the Kineret. I like this picture because it's very historically charged.
This is a view on the roman city of Ceasarea Philippi or Panias or Banias (Banias Wikipedia entry), with an antique synagogue in the center. The green area at the bottom of the cliffs on the left and center of the picture is one of the Jordan river source. At this spot carved inside the cliff was a temple dedicated to greek god Pan built during the Alexander the great era. It is also a pilgrimage area for christians.
On top of the right hill is Nimrod (cf my post about it) citadel built by the Mamlouks and the crusaders, and on the left background is mont Dov and the Sheba farms. According UNO Mount Dov is Syrian territory occupied by Israel, but it is at the Lebanon border and Syria gave it to Lebanon while it was occupied. Now Hezbollah is still fighting against Israel because they claim ownership of this land despite Israel having fully pulled out of Lebanon International borders.