Tag Archives: Landscapes

Day 1 – Northern Jordan: Umm Qais, Ajloun and Jerash

8 Replies

Sunday 15 May 2022 – Five hours’ sleep was all we got, but that didn’t seem too much of a problem as we got up and headed down for what turned out to be a perfectly decent international hotel breakfast, with a target of meeting Said at 9am.

The itinerary for the day involved heading right up to the north-west of Jordan, some 120km and a 2-hour drive.  Many useful things happened during that time: a rapid education into a more detailed understanding of the highly variable quality of Jordanian road surfaces (made more so by the apparently random insertion by The Powers That Be of some pretty aggressive speed bumps); the driving philosophy among the locals, which appears to rely heavily on the “Insh’Allah” school of self-preservation; and small repayment on my sleep debt.

The bits of Jordan we saw revealed a country with charming and hospitable natives, exceedingly crappy road surfaces, a complete disregard for the rules of the road and a pervasive roadside rubbish problem consisting mainly of plastic bags littering the verges. (I realise that we in the UK haven’t got much grounds for moral superiority here, but it was noticeable.).  The speed bump thing appears to be a test of concentration for the driver, as the bumps are sometimes mild and sometimes aggressive, placed without any connection to reality and surrounded by  some pretty impressive potholes at times.  The net effect, when combined with the locals’ attitude to speed limits, road positioning and courtesy, is to make everyone cram the anchors on a few yards before each speed bump and then accelerate off as fast as possible once having established that tyres and suspension are still OK.  It doesn’t do much for fuel economy or passenger comfort but it stops life on the road being dull. And it didn’t detract in any way from our enjoyment on the day, because, Insh’Allah, we weren’t involved in any accidents.

So, a couple of hours after we started out, we arrived at Umm Qais, or, more specifically the proximate ruins of the ancient Gadara. Compared to Jerash, which we visited later, it’s a compact site – no need for a dedicated guide, as Said showed us around and talked about the history as we went.  The site’s museum has on display some lovely mosaics

and fine statuary

which have been extracted from the ruins.  It also has some wonderful displays of the intricate pottery that the people from the Graeco-Roman period were capable of

as well as some considerable ability to mould massive stone into useful things such as doors.

There are the remains of ancient shopping arcades

a very impressive Roman theatre

and many slabs of remarkably well-preserved carved marble to marvel at.

From the top of the site, you can see the Golan Heights

and the Sea of Galilee

which gives a clear indication of how near the site is to the border with Israel.

Having got to pretty much the top of Jordan, we then turned south, and our next stop was the historic castle at a town called Ajloun (reached via a stop-start drive through the traffic congestion of the rather scruffy city of Irdib. Jordanian traffic congestion isn’t as bad as Indian traffic congestion, but that doesn’t mean I’d be prepared to risk my bodywork by driving around there). However, en route we got a few more sidelights into Jordanian life.  For example, we were in peak chickpea season.  Said was given a bunch by a mate in the Umm Qais car park

and we saw several pickups loaded to the gills with harvestings.

Roadside fruit stalls are commonplace.  Some of them look well-established and flourishing

but others not so much.

These stalls are clearly a good way to get produce cheaper than normal markets, but the corollary of this is the need for alertness for people screaming to a halt unexpectedly in front of you to pick up a few loquats or whatever.

Anyway….

You can see Ajloun Castle from a distance away –

yes, there it is on the top of the hill.

It’s a massive slab of masonry, originally started by Saladdin in the 12th Century as part of his successful attempts to get rid of the Crusaders.  Since it sits at the highest point hereabouts, it gives a great view over the surrounding countryside if you happen to be on the lookout for marauding Lionhearts.

It is very photogenic.

so a pleasure to walk around, as well as being quite well described by information boards. There was one thing that gave me pause:

“Tourism Police”?  “I’m sorry, sir, but I must arrest you for wearing Bermuda shorts that aren’t garish enough.  And those sunglasses!  Couldn’t you afford Oakleys?”

In the car park area outside where cars and buses were randomly strewn about there was a rather lovely coffee stop, which underlined the hospitable nature of Jordanian life.  It was clear that Said was well-known by the people running it and we were invited for some delicious  cardamom coffee served by an imposing but charming chap called Nazih.

And then it was time for lunch, which we took in Jerash.  Well after time, actually, since it was nearly 4pm by the stage.  Said took us to a restaurant called Artemis, obviously a popular tourist destination, judging by the number of tourist buses in the car park and from the bread-making theatre going on outside.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Steve Walker (@spwalker2016)


It’s rather a neat way of serving customers with the bread that accompanies their meal. The restaurant offers a very tasty buffet meal and there’s a lot of room inside so it was easy to get a decent lunch.

Jerash is a large city and it contains a very substantial architectural site featuring neolithic, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine and early Muslim influences.  It’s sufficiently substantial to warrant having a guide specially to take you round the site; ours was called Suhir and he did a very good job of conveying the history of the place.  Some of the Roman ruins are the largest remaining in the world, eclipsing even those in Rome – the most striking example is the Forum.

The site is really quite large, with the main drag being over 800m long.  There are any number of fascinating historical details to be seen en route, for example the tracks left by the chariots on the main street.

There are smaller details to be seen:  recesses which held olive oil lamps

manhole covers enabling access to the drainage system

and some phenomenal mosaics.

There’s the inevitable tourist attraction, of course,

but the chap was still charming even when we didn’t want to buy anything.

At the north end of the main street is the colonnaded road leading to the Damascus Gate

(the main gates are all named in recognition of the countries that border Jordan – Syria to the north, Palestine to the west, Egypt to the south and Iraq to the east).

At the north end of the site is a Roman Theatre,

But the highlight of the day happened as the sun was sinking and we were walking towards the other Roman Theatre, near the Forum.  As we neared it, we heard a completely unexpected sound and so we went in to see what was going on.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Steve Walker (@spwalker2016)

On investigation, it turned out to be a Jordanian bagpiper whose only English (apart from the word “welcome”) was to emphasis how he’d been to Swindon and to the Edinburgh Tattoo. Jane got him to play the Skye Boat Song (and told him its history) and he then jammed a few other numbers whilst a little impromptu Scottish dancing went on around him.  I’ll spare Jane’s blushes by not publishing that video clip, but it was surprisingly affecting to have this confluence of very different cultures in such a remarkable setting.

This was the end of the day’s tourism, and we headed back to where Said was waiting to whisk us back to our hotel. A couple of apples, a couple of dates, couple of gins and a mug of Twinings Earl Grey have been the necessary fuel to feed this blog posting. It’s been a long, intense and enjoyable day; a full-on introduction into the sort of thing we can expect over the coming weeks as we travel round Jordan.  I hope you want to come along for the rest of the ride.

Gran Canaria Day 8 – Bandama Run

Leave a Reply

Friday March 11 2022 – The day started with the usual mixed feelings; sad to be leaving, but with a sneaky feeling that it might be nice to be home again after two splendid weeks away.  Read on to see whether that latter hope was actually realised.

We checked out of the hotel, having given the excellent Augustin at reception our feedback on the restaurant (which, by the way, he seemed to be in agreement with).  Then, since Jane hadn’t done the hike up Bandama, the local volcano, that I had enjoyed, and since there was a road available to its top, we thought we’d spend a few minutes driving up to take a look. It’s a drive with its own idiosyncrasies.

We made it without actually crashing in any significant way, and went right up to the mirador to look at the view.

In one direction, it’s a great panorama.

In the distance, towards the right of the photo above, you can see the island’s capital, Las Palmas, and the peninsula of La Isleta beyond it.

Walk round to the other side of the mirador, and this is what you see;

further proof, were it needed, that you can put a golf course on the side of a volcano. This is the same crater that I saw during my hike of a couple of days earlier.

Before wisdom prevailed and I forswore golf for the rest of my days, I had developed quite an astonishing slice; I think I would have been in real trouble right from the first tee, given that playing your ball from inside a volcanic crater is not easy.

That view was the last great piece of scenery of a great couple of weeks exploring two of the Canary Islands.  The rest of the day was spent in the relatively dull administrative side of getting home – returning the hire car, sitting on a delayed flight awaiting takeoff, stumbling through the dark and cold and rain from the taxi back in the UK, discovering that the boiler had broken down a week before and the house was freezing, that kind of thing.

That last item quite ruined our plans for a relaxing final glass of something cold in a post-vacational glow at home.  Instead, we put a drip tray under the apparently now-leaking boiler, made a cup of tea and climbed into pajamas to try to keep warm during the night, with a firm plan to try to get the boiler mending people out on the next day. This last plan was also kyboshed by Jane’s honesty in confessing that we’d been in The Foreign for a couple of weeks; now, it turns out, we have to do two Covid LFT tests, 24 and 48 hours after we landed in the UK, before (assuming they are negative) they’ll even consider looking in the appointment diary; so it may be several days before we’re warm again. The only consolation is that excess electricity provided by our very recently-installed solar panels has at least furnished us with hot water in our tank without actually collapsing our roof.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Steve Walker (@spwalker2016)


(We’re also lucky in having a gas fire so we can at least keep warm whilst we check that we are not plague-ridden in order to receive the necessary service visit.)

And that’s about it for the holiday.  It’s now Saturday 12th March, and we have kept our spirits up by continuing what had become something of a habit during our time in the Canaries – a glass of something cold followed by a decent lunch (although we had to cook this one ourselves).

We’ve had a great couple of weeks, exploring two very different islands.  The weather was by and large wonderful, the scenery was superb and overall the experience was just what a holiday should be.  If you’ve been following the blog for the last couple of weeks, thank you for your company, and come back to these pages in a couple of months (all other things being equal)  to read about our next excursion, which should be a great deal more exotic.  See you then!

 

Gran Canaria Day 7 – We Gotta Get Outa This Place – But HOW??

1 Reply

Thursday 10 March 2022 – The forecast for clear skies and sunshine was propitious for the whole island, so we decided that it would be a good idea to head for one of the highest points, Pico de las Nieves (1949m above sea level), to see what the view was like.

It was pretty good.

Looking to the north-west we could even see the island of Tenerife; in the foreground is another of Gran Canaria’s landmarks, Roque Nublo, a 67m tall volcanic rock (its top is 1,813 m above sea level).

Looking to the south-west is also a great view.

and dead to the west, you can even see the vast area given over to growing fruit and vegetables at La Aldea.

After the Pico, we spent the rest of the morning getting to the north of the island, via several other lovely views, such as this one, from south of Tejeda.

We stopped at lots of miradors to take snapshots and I won’t bore you with an endless succession of the views; I hope the above (and previous posts) gives you the general idea.

As we approached the coast, we did get a nice view of the town of Galdar, clinging to the slopes of its conical hill.

and a nice view along the coast towards Las Palmas, the capital of Gran Canaria.

We weren’t just idly driving around, though. We had an objective, Cenobio de Valerón.  This is an aboriginal barn, built by the ancient Canarians more than 800 years ago.

They hacked out more than 350 cavities using stone picks, and used them for the storage of cereals and other foods.  The term “cenobium” comes from the idea that the chambers of the site were used as the rooms of a kind of convent in which young women of the noble classes were secluded until the moment they married. But we now know there wasn’t a grain of truth in that notion.

Once food was stored in a silo, it was sealed up to help preserve it. The site has some examples of the sealing.

Our next planned destination was the town of Arucas, described in our Sunflower book of Gran Canaria as a “pleasant country town”.  Can you have a country town?  Surely it’s either town or country?  Anyway, the same book mentioned that en route there was a ravine worth a visit, the Barranco de Azuaje, so we thought we’d take a look. Apparently it’s the deepest ravine in the north of the island.

The book also mentions a small detour deep into the ravine. About 300 metres along a track you come across something very unexpected; a deserted and ruined spa.

This web page has a photo of it rather less obscured by vegetation, and we found a photo of it in its heyday on a nearby information board.

After this diversion we headed into Arucas with the idea of finding some lunch.  We eventually did this, but first we found the disadvantage of modern technology, swiftly followed by some advantages. We wanted to park in the town, but to park in the road required buying a ticket from a machine; but the machine only took coins – no chance to use the phone or a card to pay.  We had no coins, so turned to the satnav we brought from the UK to help us find the free car park we knew was somewhere but couldn’t fathom out the one way system in order to find it.  The satnav knew the way, and as we drove in a chap motioned us to a space.  It turned out that said chap wasn’t an official, he was a freelancer, hoping to get cash from the people he helped find a space.  Sadly, we had no cash, so couldn’t pay him. So unfortunate.

Where we parked is just by the church.  But – what a church!

It’s the church of San Juan Bautista, and is neo-gothic; started in 1909, completed in 1932.  We wanted to look inside, but it was closed, so we lunched at a restaurant, El Mercado, that Jane had unearthed online, in the hope that it would be open when we had dined. It was a good meal, with great service from a waiter who actually advised us that our original choice would be too much food, so we ended up having just the right amount (including vegetables for me – yay!).

When we got back to the church, it was indeed open, but mainly because a service was going on.  I managed a quick grab shot to try to give an idea of the interior

and we wandered back to the car via a few other sights in the town.

A nearby hill, imaginatively named Montaña De Arucas, offered a mirador and so we headed up to the top, which gave a very impressive view back over the town.

From this you can see how imposing the church is.  The hill once had a volcanic crater, which was filled in to allow the building of a very comprehensive viewpoint facility, with views at all four points of the compass and a restaurant an’ everyfink. And there is an impressive panorama from it.

Sadly, though, the restaurant is closed (maybe due to the pandemic) and has been extensively vandalised, which is a real shame, because it must have once been a great facility.

This was our final port of call, so we headed back to the hotel.  Or, rather, we tried to.  But the technology that had found us the car park was badly traduced by whoever it was who decided to close one of the roads that led out of the town.

Arucas may be on the surface a “pleasant country town”. But under the thin veneer of pleasantness lurks a hideous, hidden horror.  Because the idiots who built the place had no idea about the modern automobile, the one-way system in place in Arucas is extensive, labyrinthine and complicated. The satnav knew quite a lot about it, but not everything – and didn’t understand that the road out of town was closed due to roadworks. We spent a full thirty minutes trying to find a way out of town, only to end up back where we started.  Have you ever had one of those nightmares where no matter how hard you try you can’t get to where you want to?  This was one such, only made real.  The one-way system was so complex that we couldn’t use common sense, the satnav kept leading us back to an impossible route and we got more and more frustrated with the whole thing.  Jane cracked it in the end by taking us back up the hill and then darting off unexpectedly on a side road when the satnav wasn’t looking, and we eventually made it out of the never-ending story that was the relationship between our satnav and the Arucas one-way system.

Technology had one more fiendish trick up its sleeve. Today being the last full day of our time here, we thought it would be a good wheeze to check in for our flight tomorrow afternoon. Sadly, BA’s website had other ideas.  We have to provide proof that we are Covid-compliant – vaccination certificates and Passenger Locator forms.  Jane is superbly organised and so has the necessary documents to hand (and online).  Firstly, the BA app on my phone decided not to have any truck with PDF documents; then when we went to a good old-fashioned PC with Windows, the BA website decided it should communicate with us in Spanish. Anyway, the practical upshot is that we have managed to submit the proofs, but are awaiting either a person or an AI entity at BA to give us the thumbs-up so we can complete check-in. Why we should have this problem now when we haven’t had it before when travelling back from Spanish islands is simply one of the eternal mysteries of life.  One hopes that we’ll be allowed to leave tomorrow to get back to a cold, rainy England.  Stay tuned to find out how it went.