The Magnificent Ancient City of Petra, Jordan

 

The Monastery, Petra

When we first visited Petra with our kids nearly 40 years ago, Bedouin families were still living in its caves.  The next year, the Jordanian government kicked them all out, moving them to a village above the valley, in order to turn Petra into a “real” tourist site.  It was phenomenal then, when our kids were able to play soccer with local Bedouin boys inside one of the huge cave tombs.  Today, it is no less wonderful, just filled with Bedouin offering rides on their camels and donkeys instead of living in the caves.  

view of Wadi Musa (Petra) from above

The valley is one of the most spectacular ancient cities in the world.  First, the rock into which the tombs and temples have been carved is multi-colored and gorgeous. 

Petra's colorful rock formations

Second, one of the most stunning sights on earth is emerging from the narrow Siq, a deep rock chasm with towering cliffs, ranging from 10 to 40 feet wide and ¾ mile long, to see the famous Treasury building, what everyone visits Petra to see.

the beautiful Treasury

But, there is so much more—the Nabataean stone architecture and tombs, Roman ruins, Byzantine mosaics, not to mention the natural beauty of Wadi Musa (Valley of Moses), the canyon of Petra, occupied for 12,000 years. 

walking down the Siq

All along the valley, tombs have been carved into the sandstone.  You can walk the length of the valley to a restaurant at the end and then climb another mile to the Monastery, a third century BC Nabataean tomb surrounded by huge black rock mountains and many vendors.  If you don’t want to climb the stairs cut into the rocks, you can take a donkey ride, which one of our group decided to do.  Despite her qualms, her donkey and guide hauled her safely up the steep trail so she could see not just the Monastery, but the gorgeous terrain all around.  If you walk from the entrance to a viewpoint past the Monastery and back, it is 10 to 11 miles, and a wonderful hike. 

tombs dug into the cliffs

The Byzantines built several churches, one of which

has beautiful mosaic floors.  It is well worth the short

climb to the church because the mosaics are 

stunning and you can continue on to a long series of

tombs carved into the colorful cliffs.

mosaic floor in Byzantine church

The Romans built their own city in the first couple of centuries AD, complete with temples, marketplaces, theaters and roads.  They ruled Petra for 250 years, but left when an earthquake destroyed much of the city. 

Dogs and donkeys are everywhere, usually resting, sometimes noisily announcing their fights and frustrations.

Roman temple

tomb cut into colorful cliff

dogs lolling along the Roman road

The Roman City of Jerash and Ancient Amman

Two views of Jerash's Roman Forum

                                  

Jordan’s wonderful Greco-Roman city of Jerash is one of the most beautiful Roman cities I’ve visited anywhere in the world.  It spreads across open fields, full of wildflowers in March and April, with its warm sandstone columns and stones glowing in the sunlight.  Centuries after the Romans built the roads, colonnades, theaters, temples, markets, forums, and houses that made up the Roman city, the Byzantines took over, building churches alongside the earlier structures, using stones from the Roman period.  An 8^th century AD earthquake destroyed most of the city and later earthquakes finished it off. 

Roman columns and storm clouds

We visited Jerash on a stormy day, just before a rare rainstorm drenched the city.  You could easily spend a full day wandering, pretty much alone, among the ruins, but we kept an eye on the rain clouds, spent several hours enjoying the site, and scrambled into a restaurant just before the rain poured down in sheets.  Quite unusual for arid Jordan.

Roman theater in Jerash

As in most Roman cities, the Forum was the heart of the city.  The graceful Forum in Jerash is surrounded by columns and crossed by the Roman road Trajan built.  After Trajan, Herod visited the city, welcomed by a huge arch constructed in his honor. 

 The theaters have amazing acoustics.  You can stand in just the right place on the stage and be heard easily throughout the seats rising steeply up the sides of the theater. 

Today, there is other life in Jerash, besides tourists.

bird nesting in Roman column
below:  columns and capitals of church

Roman stone flower and today's daisy

The Byzantine church of St. George has beautiful mosaics that are, unfortunately, fully exposed to the weather.  Jerash would like to protect these treasures, but doesn’t have the money.  In some ways, I’d love to see the mosaics better protected, but would hate to see ugly tin roofs mar the open serenity of Jerash.  It is such a pleasure to wander the unmarked paths among the ruins, visiting these ancient structures as they were 1500 to 2000 years ago, imagining the busy marketplace, roads filled with goods and chariots, priests in their temples, and the daily life of the inhabitants.

left:  family walking along Roman road; right:  Hadrian's Arch

 

  

mosaics in St. George's church

Temple at Amman Citadel

After the deluge, we returned to Amman and its Citadel, atop one of the hills that make up the city.  There are the remains there of a fortress and a temple as well as a small museum with sculptures from 6,000 BC.  Obviously, people have occupied what is not Amman for many thousands of years.  Below the Citadel is a beautifully-preserved Roman                                                                                                    amphitheater, surrounded by the buildings of the                                                                                          modern city. 

Roman Amphitheater, Amman

Amman Citadel with modern city behind

 

8500 year old sculpture from Amman

 

The Fortress of Masada and Entry to Jordan

 

Roman siege camp below Masada

Driving south along the Israeli side of the Dead Sea, just about at its southern end, you look west to see the high sandstone butte that is Masada.  This is where a group of Jews withstood a Roman siege for months in the first century AD, until the Romans built a siege tower atop a narrow ridge and battered their way into the fortress.  A chronicler writing 100 years later said nearly 1000 Jews committed suicide at Masada rather than become Roman slaves, but archaeologists have found only 28 human remains, so the story is a bit murky.  What we do know is that the Jews in Judea had rebelled against the harsh Roman rule and that a final contingent of these rebels made their last stand at Masada.  All around Masada are the remains of Roman siege camps where soldiers stayed until their assault on the fortress.

Dead Sea and desert from top of Masada

Guard houses and storage rooms

During the first century BC, King Herod built a palace on the site, with 3 layers of the palace cascading down the cliffs on one side of the mesa.  There are the ruins of store rooms, cisterns and 2 temples on the site, with several Roman mosaic floors and painted frescoes.

Today, Masada is a major tourist attraction in Israel, with a cable car making it easy to get to the top of the mountain.  Several years ago, we visited here and found the line for the return cable car too long for us, so we walked down the snaking trail to the bottom.  Many people climb to the to of the butte along the same steep ridge the Romans used in their final assault on Masada.  

Herod's bath house

The views of the Dead Sea below are beautiful, if usually a bit murky from blowing dust and sand.  The area along the Dead Sea is full of sink holes which you can see from the summit and from the road that runs along the west side of the sea.  These have forced rerouting of the road in several places and caused an entire resort to be abandoned because its buildings were collapsing into the huge sinkholes upon it was unwittingly built.

Roman mosaic in Herod's palace

We crossed into Jordan across the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge, just north of the Dead Sea.  There were very few people at the Israeli border station, except for a couple of officials rudely shouting orders and demanding documents.  To get to the Jordan border station, you have to drive about a mile, across the trickle that is now the Jordan River.  Our Jordanian bus met us outside the Israeli border station to take us across the border, but there is also a regular shuttle between the 2 stations, so it’s an easy crossing.

On the Jordanian side, you go through Jordanian immigration.  Fortunately for us, Jordan had just dropped its requirement for a PCR test for entry and another PCR test upon arrival.  So, we proceeded to Amman with ease.  

Sink holes dot the desert by the Dead Sea

 

Three Days in Jerusalem

 

Western Wall 

After a day on our own exploring Jerusalem from atop the walls surrounding the city, we spent 2 days with a guide visiting the highlights of this ancient and beautiful city.  The layers of history are visible everywhere, from the excavations around the Temple Mount to the sections of the Roman road that once stretched across the city and on to the Mediterranean Sea.

Jerusalem's ancient ramparts

On our first day, the Temple Mount, with the beautiful Dome of the Rock and the huge and important al-Aqsa Mosque, was closed because of a Muslim holiday.  The Israeli police close the Temple Mount whenever they have the slightest concern about any political activity that could cause a riot or even just a demonstration.  The Israeli government wants, above all, to keep the Temple Mount quiet and peaceful, particularly since the 2 major Palestinian uprisings began there.  While the Palestinians control the area, there is a heavy Israeli police presence as well.  No one is allowed to bring non-Muslim religious materials to the site.  Jews cannot pray there.  Men and women cannot show any display of affection.  Palestinian police monitor the morals and Israeli police make sure no one violates the rules in this tinderbox area. 

Dome of the Rock

We were able to visit this beautiful place, holy to Muslims, Christians and Jews, on our second day of touring.  There are 9 entrances to the Temple Mount.  Non-Muslims can enter by only one of these, but can leave through any of the gates.  Muslims can use any entrance.  The day of our visit was quiet with only a few tourists visiting.  Muslim families and groups of enthusiastic school children strolled and romped across the spacious courtyards.  Since only Muslims can enter the al-Aqsa Mosque, we could only look at it from the outside.

al-Aqsa Mosque, Temple Mount

 The Western Wall is always busy.  Men and women have   different sections where they can pray, with the women’s   section being much smaller than the men’s.  Families   come with their 13-year-old boys for Bar Mitzvahs, but   there is no such thing as a Bat Mitzvah in the Orthodox   Jewish tradition, so you don’t see families of girls   gathered for the girls’ coming of age ceremonies.  This   solemn and holy place draws Jews from all over the world to pray, put tiny pieces of paper with prayers written on them into the crevices between the huge stones of the wall, and to feel the emotion of thousands of years of history and diaspora.  Not everyone was solemn, however, as a few young women, scantily dressed, took endless selfies of themselves in front of the wall, blocking the way for worshippers. 

window in Hall of the Last Supper

For Christians, Jerusalem is the site of Jesus’ last days, so visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Garden of Olives and Gethsemane are essential visits.  Of the 4 quarters of the city, Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Armenian, the busiest and most heavily populated is the Muslim Quarter.  Only about 800 people live in the Armenian Quarter while over 20,000 live in the Muslim Quarter, kept lively by a large market filling the alleyways and streets of this section of the Old City.  Armenians worship at the Armenian Orthodox Church, with its beautiful tile work, a hallmark of this Quarter of the city.

entrance to Armenian Church

 Our final visit was to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum, with its heartbreaking videos of survivors of the Holocaust telling their stories.  You leave Yad Vashem with the horror of the Holocaust filling your heart and mind.  Unfortunately, the day we were there, the German chancellor was also scheduled to visit, so our time was cut short as the Museum shut down in preparation for his arrival.  

baklava display in Mahane Yehuda Market

We had lunch at an Iraqi restaurant in the Mahane Yehuda Market on our last day and loved a stroll through the endless stalls overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, candy, baklava and much more.  It is Jerusalem’s main food market where families from all over the Middle East serve their native dishes to shoppers and tourists alike.

Jewish cemetery at Mount of Olives

Israel is just reopening after 2 years of Covid shutdowns.  Restaurants have reopened quickly, so we enjoyed excellent food in the neighborhood surrounding our hotel.  But, the toll has been huge.  Our guide told us he had not worked in 2 years.  The government helped for a while, but the last 15 months have been very difficult for him and almost all Israelis.  

After a visit to Masada, in my next blog, we crossed the Jordan River at the Allenby/King Husssein Bridge crossing for 5 days in Jordan.

Finally in the Middle East

Dome of the Rock from atop the Old City ramparts

Two years ago, we canceled our trip to Israel, Jordan and Egypt 10 days before we were to arrive in Jerusalem.  Last year, we canceled our trip several weeks before our planned departure.  Covid was in full force and destroying so many lives and plans.  

towers along the ramparts

Finally, 2 years late, we arrived in Jerusalem last night, after a blizzard of preparations to meet Israel's Covid restrictions--lots of PCR testing before our departure and upon arrival, forms to fill out, appointments to make, airline requirements to manage.  Israel requires new arrivals to quarantine until you get your "on arrival" PCR test results or 24 hours, whichever is earlier, so we had planned to have dinner in our rooms last night and sleep off our quarantine.

The hotel staff, however, told us no one was paying any attention to the quarantine requirement anymore, so we happily walked to a local restaurant, the Sea Dolphin, for a large and excellent Mediterranean seafood dinner.  

houses on hillside outside Old City

Our negative test results landed in our inboxes just as we were headed out for a free day in Jerusalem's Old City.  We decided to walk the Ramparts.  There are 2 sections of the Old City wall that you can walk for a small fee, about 3 1/2 miles in all of wonderful views over the city, old and new, with lots of steep stairs to scramble up and down.  You get a small look into people's lives as you peer into their back yards from above.  It's surprising how unkempt the gardens and open spaces are, but there are also playgrounds and soccer fields created on top of houses below, in between the twists and turns of the walls.  The North section of the Rampart Walk is longer than the South section with more interesting views of the Old City.  From the South section, you can look out over the Judaean hills, now mostly covered with limestone houses.  The ticket booth is just inside the Jaffa Gate, next to the tourist information office.

In one area, the wall had collapsed, been rebuilt, and collapsed again.  Probably one reason some of the open spaces are tangled with weeds and scruffy trees.  They may be quite unstable.  The area in the photo was supported by large steel braces, but still falling down.

The Arab market was in full swing today, Sunday, but the Christian Quarter was absolutely quiet.  We loved wandering through the narrow, mostly covered, alleys of the souk, filled with colorful goods, from clothes to candy, and the pungent  smells of the spice shops.  Lots of tiny restaurants invite you in, but, given Covid, we found an outside restaurant where we could have a lunch of pita, hummus, salad and shawarma.  The owner and his "cousin" brought out their wares, from hats, to caftans to woven bags, ready to bargain hard in search of a sale.

Jerusalem is an invigorating mix of people and cultures.  The Arab Quarter hums and bustles with business, tiny shops, men pushing loaded carts through the narrow alleys, families shopping, kids running full speed and occasionally crashing into people and goods.  Children play soccer in the cobbled streets because there is no playground for them.  You see Muslim women and Orthodox men, women from the settlements shopping in the ancient streets on their cell phones, young men and women in military uniforms, many with automatic weapons hanging off their shoulders, and tourists now returning to Israel for the first time in 2 years.  Despite the apparent harmony of the moment, you know the next eruption of violence could happen at any time.

Arab woman

For the next 2 days, we will tour Jerusalem with a guide, including Yad Vashem, Israel's moving and somber Holocaust Museum.  From here, we will go to Masada, the high butte overlooking the Dead Sea where Jews held off the Romans for a year until the Romans built huge earthen ramps to the top.  When the Romans reached the summit, there was no one left alive.  

Orthodox man by wall

Dog "sledding" with Northern Huskies

Huskies ready to go

Dave is a musher, a 3^rd generation Churchillian and a member of the Metis people.  His children are, obviously, 4^th generation Churchillians.  He has 11 grandchildren living in Churchill.  The entire family is engaged in the dog sledding business. 

Dave has 40 dogs, about 1/3 of which are rescue dogs, retrieved sometimes at considerable cost from people, he said, “who don’t understand dogs”.  He loves his dogs, all Northern Huskies, talks to them, pets them, cooks just the right mix of protein and fat for their meals, grooms them and, most important, trains them to love to run.  And his dogs do love to run.  They are lean and muscular and do not look like a typical Husky except for their bright blue eyes.

Huskies in their pen

We arrived for our dog sledding adventure—actually, dog carting since there was no snow and we rode in 2-person wheeled carts behind 8-dog teams—on a cold, windy morning to see 4 teams of dogs howling and yapping and tugging in their excitement over their upcoming run.  The dogs were dismayed that we were so slow getting into our carts.  Once aboard, the musher let the teams loose and off we went on a wild, fast, exhilarating ride, all of us laughing at the dogs and the speed.

Huskies and handlers by cart

Dog mushing isn’t just a smooth flow.  One of the dogs made a brief stop to poop, causing a moment of chaos in the pack and requiring our musher to stop the team, leap off the back of the cart, lift the offending dog off the ground as he untangled her from her harness and promptly move on, all in less than 60 seconds.  Several times, the dogs tangled themselves as one dog or another nipped a neighbor or leaped in too much enthusiasm, leading to more lifting and sorting out of dogs.  Then they were off again, dogs yelping in pleasure at being able to run. 

In a team of 8 dogs, harnessed in pairs, the first 2 dogs are the lead dogs, trained to be in the lead and guide the pack.  The next 4 dogs are the pullers and the final 2 are the wheel dogs who do the Herculean work of keeping the sled or cart stable and pulling above their weight.  Each dog has a predisposition for a particular type of pulling, so Dave works with them to find the place they like best.  Then it is a labor of love and effort to mold them into a team that likes running and pulling together.

wishful Husky

The dogs live in a large compound, each on a long tether attached to its own dog house and far enough from the other dogs to avoid fights.  The dog houses are not insulated, but do have fresh straw on the dirt floors.  But, the dogs are usually hot and often pull out the straw so they can sleep on the ground, even on very cold nights.  Their fur has 2 layers, a short layer of fur and a long outer layer that overlays the short layer.

These are racing dogs who love pulling a sled and competing in long, cold races over a frozen land.

 

 

 

 

 

Churchill and its landscape

lakes near Churchill with Hudson Bay beyond

The town of Churchill has about 800 permanent residents, many of whom are members of one of the 3 indigenous tribes.  Some are proudly 4^th or 5^th generation Churchillians, as they call themselves.  About 60% live in government-subsidized housing, a necessity in this harsh environment where tourism has replaced hunting and trapping as the main source of income for the local families, but still doesn’t provide adequate incomes for most people.

Churchll's mostly abandoned port

The town is a bit dilapidated, but proud of its heritage and culture.  The modern school building houses all the community services, including indoor and outdoor playgrounds, the health clinic, hospital, gym and social services, a very smart way to make living in Churchill convenient for families.

There are several shops selling local crafts and art, a very expensive grocery store, a small and interesting museum displaying finely carved sculptures from bone, ivory and even human teeth (the artist’s own) and stuffed animals of the region.  One highlight of the town is the murals, painted by local artists on garages and abandoned buildings, that beautifully reflect local culture and love of wild  animals and places.

carvings from the artist's teeth

Tourism has grown hugely over the last 20 years.  Now, tourists come to see the polar bears in the fall as they migrate through the area to the pack ice on Hudson Bay, the Beluga whales in the spring and summer and the Northern lights in the winter.  The tourist infrastructure is small, with some fairly basic hotels and a few restaurants, all geared to groups of tourists and all quite nice, with exceptionally thoughtful staff.

walrus whiskers, Churchill museum

There are no roads to Churchill.  There are a railroad and an airport, built by the US military.  The airport is also a potential landing area (no. 18 in the lineup) for the space shuttles in case landing areas 1 – 17 are not available.  At one point, the railroad was flooded and badly damaged.  The Canadian government refused to repair it for a year and a half, leaving Churchillians stranded with only air service to provide essential supplies.  The railroad is operating again, but the thawing of the permafrost is making the tracks humpy, putting trains at big risk of derailment.  Only one airline, Calm Air, has regularly scheduled flights to Churchill right now.  It also provides charter service as does at least one other airline.

The town once had a large port that primarily exported grain from the farmlands of central and western Canada.  At its peak, 4 ships a day would load up with grain and head out into the Hudson Bay.  Now only a few ships a year dock here, but the huge grain elevators, crumbling docks and abandoned administration building remain.  About half of the grain elevators are used now.  The railroad was built to Churchill to carry the grain to the port.  A year-round ice-free Hudson Bay might restore the port, but, without ice, the fate of the polar bears will be grim.

abandoned port administration building

Churchill is on a point of land between the broad Churchill River and the Hudson Bay.  The prevailing winds blow from north to south and push the pack ice from the frozen North into the bay inside the hook of the peninsula, making Churchill an ideal place for the polar bears to find the pack ice they need to hunt the seals they survive on.  Once the pack ice has filled the bay, the bears take off, often traveling more than 100 miles in search of seals.  They won’t return until the ice begins to break up in the spring, which signals the beginning of their long fast. 

polar bear mural

On both sides of the Churchill River, at Cape Merry, the British set up fortresses to protect their fur hunting grounds from French invaders.  The French weren’t such a big threat, but the fur hunters and traders were, essentially wiping out the huge beaver, fox, seal, bear and otter populations to provide hats and coats for Europeans.  This disaster, of course, was catastrophic for the indigenous people who relied on these animals for food, clothing and shelter, and who killed what they needed and nothing more (until the fur trade arrived).

The tundra is flat and wet.  The province of Manitoba, from Winnipeg to Churchill, is covered 50% by water.  There are shallow ponds everywhere.  When you go out on the tundra in the spacious tundra buggies with their enormous tires, you rumble clumsily along the tracks built decades ago by the army and splash through shallow fresh water ponds and lakes, now freezing over at night and melting a bit during a                                                                       sunny day.

sunset over Hudson Bay