Our adventures in Aqaba and southern Jordan

This week, we took our first trip abroad since coming to Israel more than seven and a half years ago. Ever since moving to Eilat, I have been fascinated by Aqaba, Jordan, which is readily visible from nearly all parts of our city, and yet it's too far away to see any details. We finally got around to getting our Israeli passports this summer, and so I began to make plans to visit Aqaba. I researched enough to find out that we could take our own car, and this is really what made the trip doable for us, given David's often iffy mobility. So I made the hotel reservations.

Last Sunday morning (6 October 2013), we packed our suitcase and drove over to the border crossing, stopping on the way to fill the car with gas and buy PepsiMaxes to ward off dehydration.

Crossing the border is quite a process. I think it took us a total of about and hour and a half or maybe a little more. The first step was to get the guard to open the gate so we could drive into the Israeli side of the crossing. After talking to us a bit, she had to go all around the car using a big mirror to make sure there was nothing suspicious attached underneath the vehicle. We then parked the car in the Israel crossing station and had to visit about 3 different offices there. They had to check our passports, of course, and we had to get our car registration translated. We had to pay for our exit stamps (I don't remember how much, but we could use our credit card), and we had to pay 16 shekels for the registration translation. Then, equipped with all the properly stamped documents, we proceeded to the gate that would let us out of that area and into the short no-man's-land strip between the Israeli and Jordanian crossing stations.

We had to visit even MORE offices on the Jordanian side, including getting temporary Jordanian registration for the car (complete with white Jordanian license plates) and mandatory car insurance. Finally equipped with the properly stamped Jordanian documents (all in Arabic, of course), we were allowed to leave the crossing area and drive on the Jordanian road away from the border.

Rather than try to go through all the details of our visit to Jordan, I want to talk about some of my main impressions and show you some of the pictures I took.

First, let me say that it was almost like going to another world. Yes, the roads were similar, many of the highway signs were familiar (especially the international symbols), but the feel of the place was just very different in ways that are hard to pin down exactly. It's more the sum total than any one thing, but here are some of the differences I noticed.

Those of you who know me well will not be surprised to hear that one of the first things I noticed was the cars (my first word was "car" even though I couldn't quite say the "r" right yet, and I was able to identify nearly all the cars on the road in the States before I even learned the alphabet!). Of course, there were many models in Jordan that are also in Israel (and even in the U.S.), but there were also a lot that I had either NEVER seen before or seen only very rarely here in Israel. The average age of the cars in Jordan is definitely several years more than in Israel, and the average size is somewhat larger, as well. I think I saw only ONE Prius in Jordan (although they're plentiful here in Eilat, including many taxis), and I don't remember seeing ANY Fiats (besides our own, of course!) The taxis are painted a deep metallic green, which I didn't find very attractive, but at least they're easy to spot!

It wasn't until we had returned home that I realized that I think we didn't see a single scooter, motorbike, or motorcycle in Jordan! They must be illegal there, or people would surely use them, as they do everywhere here in Israel.

There is no regular, scheduled bus service over there, not even in the city. There are a number of small buses (and an occasional larger one) that must operate on some kind of a private basis, but they clearly don't have a regular schedule, line numbers, or bus stops.

There's less traffic over there in general, and people seem quite a bit LESS in a hurry than in Israel. They drive a little bit crazily, but again somewhat LESS than in Israel, and they don't usually go as fast. The typical speed limit in town is 40 kph, which seems to be mostly followed (compared with 50 kph in town in Israel which is almost universally IGNORED!). There are quite a few speed bumps, even on the major roads, so that helps some, too. The speed limit on the open highways well out of town is typically 110 kph for cars, but the traffic there was really quite sparse, at least during our visit.

The roads were very good -- broad divided boulevards in the city and nicely graded highways. The road up Wadi Araba (as the Arava is known in Arabic) was mostly 2-lane, but the highway to Amman is all at least 4 lanes and on divided roadways (at least as far as we went). One reason for this, of course, is that Aqaba has more than twice as many people as Eilat, and it is very important to Jordan since it is the Kingdom's only seaport. And it's growing, too. We saw lots of construction: new neighborhoods, commercial centers, and roads.

Most of the neighborhoods we saw in Aqaba seemed quite decent, although the architecture of the apartments was quite plain and not at all inspiring. We did see one area, though, with clearly substandard housing. We saw no beggars anywhere, however, and the people did not seem to be particularly poor, even though Jordan is still basically a developing country and not at all rich. I also only saw one or two nice villas, but, of course, the nicest ones are probably hidden WELL out of sight.

People tend to cover more of their bodies with their clothes in Jordan. I expected this from the women, but I was a little surprised how many men wore long pants and long-sleeve shirts, even though the weather is still quite hot. David and I, both dressed in short pants and tank tops, really stuck out! Nevertheless, people didn't seem to be paying much attention to us, so I guess it wasn't such a big deal. I saw quite a few men (though FAR from the majority) wearing Saudi-style robes and headdresses. Some, in fact, probably WERE from Saudi Arabia, which is only a short distance down the coast road. In fact, we drove almost all the way down to the Saudi border, turning around just before the actual border crossing station!

The Arabs are well-known to be heavy meat-eaters, and the restaurant menus certainly reflected that. There were never any vegetarian main dishes, and only a few items, such as some salads and a few sandwiches that were meat-free. Nevertheless, we really enjoyed the food there. The selection may have been limited for us vegetarians, but the most of the dishes we did have were delicious! There were LOTS of restaurants near our hotel, and we only got to try a few of them, of course. Breakfasts were included at the hotel, and they were very similar to the ones at Israeli hotels, and very good, too.

I found a shopping district in the downtown area that is kind of like a permanent shuk, with lots of small shops selling all kinds of things, from foods to clothing to household items, and more. A little later, when we were driving on a main road a short distance from there, we passed more than a dozen tire shops in the space of about 3 or 4 blocks!

One of the purposes of our visit was to see what Eilat looks like from over there. So, I'll start the pictures with some views of exactly that. Here's a panoramic view, taken from some distance up from the gulf in Aqaba, that shows the whole city of Eilat:

This one shows somewhat less of the city (only the middle and northern parts), and so it's much easier to see details. It's a particularly nice view of White Mountain and Har Shlomo (Mt. Shlomo) behind it:

This next picture includes all of the Shakhamon neighborhood (where we live) and the large mountain on the left, which we can see clearly from our apartment, as well. I don't know it's name, but it's in Israel (not Egypt), just the other side of Nakhal Shlomo. I've been all the way around it, but I must find out if there's a way to climb to the top of it, because it obviously has a fantastic view!

Here's another view of Eilat, taken from right down by the water in downtown Aqaba:

This one was taken from the same general area as the previous one but looks a little further south and is cropped to include some nice local Aqaba scenery in the extreme lower left (shirtless guys were VERY rare to see; if fact, there were actually 3 or 4 other guys sitting at the end of the pier next to this one, and NONE of them were shirtless!):

I call the next picture "Two Worlds in One Pic" because it show a bit of Aqaba together with almost all of Eilat. Two cities, so close physically, and yet so distant in culture and feel!

We drove down the South Coast of Jordan a couple of times while we were there. This picture is the view looking northward from a point about 5 km north of the Saudi border. Tala Bay, a fancy resort area, is on the right, and Eilat is actually in this view in the distance, although one can hardly make out any of it, really:

For the next view, we're back in downtown Aqaba. In the foreground, we see some garden patches (I presume some kind of community garden) that are located between the boulevard and the promenade just above the beach. Further back is a marina area, and, in the background, Eilat, White Mountain, and Har Shlomo.

Here's a view from a bit further south, looking northward towards the downtown beach area:

Anyone from Eilat would shoot me if I didn't include at least one picture of the huge flag on the incredibly tall flagpole in Aqaba. According to Wikipedia, the flagpole is 130 meters high and more than 40 cm in diameter at the bottom. The flag itself is 30 meters by 60 meters. This is the main feature of Aqaba that is clearly visible from Eilat. In fact, several important roads in Eilat basically point almost directly towards it. I took this photo from near the north Aqaba port. We're looking north, and the view includes most of downtown Aqaba, as well.

Of course there are MANY mosques in Aqaba. More surprisingly, we saw a very beautiful round modern CHURCH there, too, as evidenced by a cross on top of it.

This next picture shows the minaret and one dome of a particularly beautiful white mosque in downtown Aqaba. I took this picture just at sunset:

This is a picture I took a few minutes later looking up the main road of Aqaba which eventually becomes the highway to Amman:

A little further up that same road, I took this picture, as well, showing a monument and fountain located on the green strip median in the center of the road in honor of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone (kind of a tax-free area similar to Eilat in Israel):

This next picture shows our car, Rosa, with her white Jordanian plates (not as pretty as the yellow Israeli ones she normally wears!), parked right in front of our hotel, the Al Qidra Hotel. Two things I should note in this connection: parking was never a problem for us in Jordan and was ALWAYS free, and I can highly recommend the Al Qidra Hotel for friendliness and good service.

Another important goal of our trip to Jordan was to explore some of the roads I had seen on maps and on Google Earth. One of the interesting ones I found out is called "The Aqaba Back Road". It's mostly for trucks so that they can bypass Aqaba when going to and from the ports. In fact, it's a mandatory route for them, as the signs clearly indicate, even in English. Naturally, we did NOT see many cars on this road, but it was fun "playing with the big boys" on this route. Some of it is 4-lane, some is 2-lane, and some is 3-lane, where the middle lane can be used for passing in either direction (but be careful, of course!). A lot of it is going up or down several quite steep grades, so the trucks are mostly moving VERY slowly. There are 2 or 3 roads that connect this road with various parts of the Aqaba ports, and, in total, there are quite a few escape lanes for trucks that might lose their brakes. These can be seen on some of the steep grades in the U.S., as well. Here's a picture showing a little of the back road with a very pretty mountain:

This is a view looking up the main road from Aqaba to Amman as it goes up a wadi. It's quite a beautiful route!


We also drove up Wadi Araba (as the Arava is called by Jordan). This was another goal of mine, since we've driven up and down the Arava so many times on the Israeli side. Often, I have looked over and seen cars or trucks on the Jordanian side, and I wanted to go on that road myself. Unfortunately, it was quite windy that day, so it wasn't possible to get any good pictures. Also, there was quite a bit of reddish sand blowing across the road and some beautiful sand dunes, mostly on the west side. We drove north to a point somewhere across from the Khiyon stream in Israel (I think I'm remembering that name correctly) and then turned around and drove back south to Aqaba.

Here's one of several signs we saw in Jordan pointing the way back home. The name of our city, אילת, is usually transliterated as "Eilat" in Israel, and occasionally as "Elat", but this sign chose "Ellat". By any name, though, it's our home, and we were glad to get back!

The return border crossing was a bit quicker than the one going out, but we did face some separate interrogation by Israeli security, not surprising, since we certainly don't fit most normal profiles for Israelis traveling abroad. In the end, though, of course we got back without any problems. I should add that we didn't see ANY other vehicles crossing in EITHER direction EITHER time that we crossed the border, even though we spent so much time there! We did see a number of people crossing on foot, however, including a group of German tourists going from Jordan to Israel the same time as we did.

We never bought any gas at all in Jordan. In fact, we still have a quarter of a tank, even after all that driving around there. And that pretty much sums it up: 3/4 of a tank of gas for a trip to and from a different world, right here, practically in our neighborhood.

Hike to the upper pools at Ein Avdat - 9 February 2013

Last Shabbat (9 February 2013), we decided to visit Ein Avdat again. Last time we were there, I only hiked to the lower pool, below the waterfall. You can see my post about that at this link.

This time, I headed for the upper pools, above the waterfall. In order to get there, you must turn right before the pools at the foot of the waterfall and go up these steps that are hewn into the side of the canyon. Note the metal handholds in the wall along the lower steps!

When you get to the top of the steps, there is a path about 30 cm (1 foot) wide and about 10 cm (4 inches) deep that is cut into a ledge that is around 2 m (6-7 feet) wide (my estimates). This goes all along the right side (as you are going up the canyon) of the lower pools. Here's a view of the waterfall from that ledge:

Here are a couple of views looking down the canyon and back toward the ledge, where you can see people walking along. In these views, you can also see the lower pools and people down near them. These are both taken from very near where the water goes down a short slope before the actual top of the waterfall (which, of course, you can NOT see in these photos!):

Here's another view looking more directly down the canyon, again from just above the waterfall:

Above the waterfall and just a little further upstream, there are more pools. The canyon curves toward the left (as you are going up it). There's a place between pools where the trail crosses the stream. Here's a view from that general area looking down the canyon (back toward the waterfall):

In this view, we are looking UP the canyon from that same general area. There's a small grove of poplar trees growing on the slope above the stream (but FAR below the top of the cliffs, of course!). You can see a view of them on the right side of this photo:

The area upstream of here is closed to the public so that the wild animals can feel safe there. There is a trail up the right cliff from here, but it is one-way only (UP!), so you can only take it if somebody can drive to the upper entrance of Ein Avdat and pick you up there.

My last picture is a close-up of some pretty colors in the small side branch where the water was barely flowing at all. I'm sure these colors are due to various minerals in the water:

I took all these photos with the built-in camera and standard camera app on my iPhone 4S. Of course, I did crop them and scaled the size so that the files wouldn't be to big for uploading and viewing, but I didn't do any other kind of editing at all on them.

Flowers along Highway 12

I was always amazed and impressed by the profusion of wild flowers every Spring when we were in the North. Of course, here in the desert of the South, there are simply nowhere near as many plants of any kind since we get so little rain. However, there still ARE some very lovely wildflowers, particularly along highway 12.

There's a place on highway 12 a little south of the Uvda airport where, for no apparent reason, there are wider shoulders on the road and places not quite opposite each other on both sides where there are short curbs with a bit of sidewalk, just like where there are bus stops, except there are NO bus stops here and no obvious reason why there every WOULD be! David and I refer to this as "the wide place in the road".

Since this is along the route that we call "the short loop" (up highway 90 to highway 40, then over and down highway 12 back to Eilat), we drive by this place quite often. Last week, I stopped at the wide place in the road and snapped these pictures.

This plant you see in the first couple of photos is the most obvious when you're whizzing along the highway. The flowers are a kind of coral pink and very noticeable. There are also LOTS of these nearly everywhere in the Uvda area in the drainage ditches on both sides of the road. In English, these would probably be called dock, or dock weed:

Here's a more close-up view of a different bunch of them:

Upon closer inspection, one discovers that there are actually several kinds of flowers. Here we see some small purplish white ones:

These are nearly pure white and are VERY small:

I've never seen flowers quite like these before. They are tiny yellow balls, about a centimeter in diameter:

These are also yellow and quite small, but they look something like cornflowers to me:

I took all these photos with the standard camera app on my iPhone 4S. Of course, I did crop them, and I also scaled their size so that the files wouldn't be inordinately large for uploading and viewing. Other than that, they are unedited.

Ein Avdat - 22 December 2012

Yesterday (22 December 2012) we went to Ein Avdat National Park. We had been there once before, when it was still quite hot. This time, the weather was much more pleasant. Before, we had both hiked a short distance up the trail but had turned around before getting very far. This time, David stayed in the car and listened to an audiobook while I hiked quite a bit further up.

There were quite a few people there, which is not surprising, since it was a Shabbat with perfect weather. Interestingly, the only language I heard anyone speaking was Hebrew. Usually, I would expect to hear some Russian (spoken by Russian-Israelis) and probably one of two other languages (spoken by visitors from abroad).

This is an absolutely stunningly beautiful place! Here are a few of the best pictures I took there.

Not very far up, there were 3 ibexes quite near the trail, so it wasn't too difficult to get this nice shot of a couple of them. The one on the left has some kind of a collar around its neck. I presume this has something to do with tracking him. I didn't see if the others one had one or not.

A little further up, I came to the first pool. Here's a nice picture of it reflecting the sky. I think the girl in the purple top actually adds a nice touch to this view.

In the right side of the picture above, you get a hint of the cave up high on that side. Here's a full-on view of that same cave or hollow in the side of the canyon.

Somewhat further up, there are steps carved into the wall on the right to allow people to get up past the waterfall. I didn't go that way this time. Instead, I continued toward the bottom of the waterfall. Some distance below it, there is a small, obviously manmade dam. This allows visitors to cross the stream in order to get closer to the falls. Here's a view from near the left end of that dam showing the pool behind the dam reflecting the cliff side. High above is the trail I didn't go on this time (you can't really see it, but you might spot a sign up there beside it). The waterfall is near the lower center of this pictures, but you can't really see it very well, either, since it's a bit dark in there, and there's only a trickle of water coming down. You CAN see, though, that there's another dam, this one natural and much nearer to the falls.

Here's a view from that natural dam showing the waterfall very clearly, together with about a quarter or a third of the pool between it and the natural dam.

The views in the downstream direction are impressive, too. The following 2 shots are examples:

With all this water, it's not surprising to find a lot of both plant and animal life. Here's a bird that I saw and managed to get a good picture of:

A trip to Timna Park - 24 November 2012

Today we went to Timna Park. We had been there once or twice before, but this time the weather was perfect for a bit of hiking. So, while David sat in the car and listened to one of his audiobooks, I took several short walks. Here are some of the pictures I took.

The first hike was only a short distance from the car. The destination was "A Mushroom and a Half". This picture should explain the name:

Next, I took a longer walk, but it was well worth it. Here's a beautiful view of the Pink Canyon:

On the way back to the car, I captured this view of Timna Mountain, in the right half of the picture. In the distance (to the left of Timna Mountain) you can see the Jordanian mountains, which actually, of course, are MUCH higher.

Our next stop was Solomon's Pillars. Here's a nice view of them:

To the right of the picture above, there are steps  that lead up to an opening between the rocks. Here's a view from way up there, looking north. The dark rock that frames the left side is right beside me!

After passing through the gap, there is an area near some nearly vertical smooth rocks. On one of them, barely visible, is a VERY old drawing showing Ramses III giving an offering to the Egyptian god, Hathor, with hieroglyphics below it. It has faded so much, though, that I could hardly see it in the glare of the midday sun. I took pictures, of course, but you can't see it in them, either. Nevertheless, it's quite impressive to see something from so long ago in such a remote location. It underscores the importance of this valley to the Egyptians of that time, who mined copper here.

Down below the inscription is something even more impressive: the remains of an ancient Egyptian temple! According to the sign, they found a LOT of objects associated with the worship of 3 different gods, with Hathor being the most important one. They also found the names of NINE different Egyptian kings from more than 3000 years ago!

Our last stop was the gift shop and restaurant by the artificial lake they have made there. Here's a panoramic view of the lake:

We didn't eat there, but we I did fill a couple of little plastic bottles with different colored sand in layers. It's part of what we get when we pay for entrance to the park, for which residents of Eilat get a discount!

Hemet Cistern בור חמת

Today (10 November 2012) we drove up through Makhtesh Ramon, past Mitzpe Ramon, and on west a little to הר הנגב Har HaNegev ("The Negev Mountain") nature reserve. We visited an ancient water collection cistern called בור חמת Bor Khemet ("Hemet Cistern"). I don't know who dug it because the signs only gave its name. However, it was likely the Nabateans, meaning that it was at least 1500-1600 years ago! There was no water in it today, probably because the channels that directed water into it are no longer maintained. I imagine that it was virtually NEVER completely empty during the time it was actually in use. There are still steep stairs that descend to the bottom of it (I went down them). It's probably about 2-3 meters deep. I took this picture using the neat panorama feature of iOS 6 on my iPhone.

Nakhal Shakhamon the day after a big thunderstorm

Yesterday afternoon (9 November 2012) we had a BIG thunderstorm here in Eilat! It didn't rain all that long, but plenty of it, including some small hail, came down in that short time. We stayed in our apartment for the duration, but today I read about flooding and saw plenty of evidence of when we were downtown. The airport was even closed yesterday afternoon due to flooding there!

This morning, on my way back from the outdoor gym, I took a couple of pictures of the freshly washed Nakhal Shakhamon. This first one was taken from where Harim Road crosses the nakhal (which flows under the road through TWELVE pipes that are each about 2 meters tall!). Notice that, although it looks a bit wet, there is no water flowing -- it's all gone on downstream (contributing to the flooding near the sea!), evaporated, or soaked into the ground!

Here's a pretty view from the round pergola where I do my exercises. In the foreground you can see a small beautifully landscaped area near the pergola. On the right are the exits of the 12 pipes under the road. In the distance, slightly to the left of center, is White Mountain, the tallest point in this view although it doesn't look as tall as the other hills because they are much closer.