Breaching Kerak

The first time I heard of Kerak (الكرك) was through an email correspondence with a potential couchsurfing host.  He told me that the city and its famous crusader castle could easily be another day trip from Amman.

Even though at one point I had trudged through Karen Armstrong's exhaustive account of the medieval crusades in her book Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact in Today's World,  I still wasn't all that interested in checking out the sanctuaries and other crusader ruins.  I think my indifference stemmed from having read the gory details of their slaughter campaign through the Holy Land or was turned off by their general ignorance and arrogance.  To be fair, the Crusaders weren't the first to go on a rampage in the Levant.  Prior to them, Canaanites, Israelites, Moabites, and other tribes went on their killing spree sometimes at the behest of a god or for strategic purposes.

So before arriving in Jordan, I had heard of Kerak, but I had no intention to go until a fellow volunteer living in Kerak, who I ran into while traveling Jordan's shamal (north), suggested that I crash his place. I thought, “Why not?” 

No Loose Change Around

To get to Kerak, I took a bus from the South (janubia) Amman Station and arrived in Kerak about 2 hours later.  I think the fare was about 2.5JD.  I remember upsetting the money collector when I gave him a 20JD bill.  Small bills and coins, like in Morocco, are a prized commodity. 

I still don't understand why change is so hard to come by in these countries.  Is it because the central bank is not minting enough coins or printing only a few small bills?  Are the general banks and central bank forgetting to turn in and replace the bills that have lived out their life-cycle?  For instance, Morocco's lowest denomination bill of 20 Dirham was the grimiest bill of them all.  Sometimes you could barely make out the images on the bill because everything was so smudged.    

However, before I blame the government or the bankers, maybe the root of the problem is a lack of planning and coordination on the part of the local bus companies who forget to keep change in hand.  I remembered not too long ago in Israel giving a bus driver a 50 shekel bill for a trip that cost 12 shekel and getting my change in bills and coinage in a snap without the frustrated look or rebuke.  It just made me wonder why is something like having a proper flow of currency such a big issue as soon as you cross the River Jordan or in Morocco's case as soon as you cross the Mediterranean.   Fortunately, about halfway through my trip after collecting money from everyone that boarded at the station and the stray passengers they picked up on the way, the money-man gave me and everyone else their change back.

The DL on Kerak

The PCV in Kerak told me to get off at the outskirts of the city near a truck stop.  I got out, and he was there a few minutes later.  Lining a major street leading to his house were a few shawarma stands. We went to one that he frequented and were greeted like family.  We had the Jordanian fast-food combo meal of a shawarma sandwich, a small dish of sour vegetables, and Jordan's sweetened black tea.

On our way back to the PCV's home, the PCV shared some tidbits about the make-up of his community.  He told that there were two to three prominent tribes that controled most of the local government and that the family ties were really strong.  In addition to tribal affiliations, Kerak had a significant number of Christians who actively practiced their faith.  In his community, most of the Christians lived on the north side of the city near their churches, parochial schools, and cemeteries.  He said that in general both groups respected one another and shared some of the power in managing community affairs. 

He told me that both Christians and Muslims made wise-cracks about each other.  For instance, when the volunteer visited a Christian family once and felt sick the following day, his Muslim neighbors blamed his sickness on what they said was the Christians' notoriously bad hygiene.  Christians, on the other hand, would joke that Muslims must believe that Allah is deaf so much so that he needs to hear them say 'Allah u Akbar' (God is Great) so many times during their prayers.      

@ the Castle

Kerak Castle

The following day the volunteer and I went out to see the Crusader's Castle.  The City of Kerak itself is perched up on the same hill as the castle.  We took a small transit van that zig-zagged its way up the narrow and congested city streets and dropped us off a few blocks from the entrance.

I paid a small entrance fee.  The volunteer went over to one of the gate attendants and told him that he lived in Kerak, showed his Jordanian ID, and dropped his host father's tribal last name, which immediately brought a smile to the attendant's face. They spoke to each other for a bit, exchanged a few God phrases, and soon thereafter, the attendant told him to proceed without paying.

The views from the castle were quite stunning.  Most of the fields in this dry and hilly terrain were plowed waiting for the winter rains to come.  Off in the distance, one could make out the blue of the Dead Sea and the silvery haze that hovered over it.

View from Kerak Castle-Dead Sea in the distance

The castle was a labyrinth of tunnels with all sorts of nooks and crannies.  We snaked through the tunnels, checked out some of the major halls, rooms, and wells, climbed to the top, and imagined the siege of Salah al-Din's army.

Angry birds at Kerak Castle

I can see why Saladdin had such a hard time conquering the post.  It was nearly impossible to scale it without getting shot at, burned by any type of scalding liquid, or run over by whatever debris was thrown from the top.  The narrow windows on the fortress walls protected the archers very well.  One had to be quite a marksman to be able to squeeze an arrow through such a narrow opening.  Even though I'm no fan of the Crusaders, I had to marvel at the ingenuity of the fortress architecture.

After an hour or so walking through the castle, we made our way down to the city center where we made a small pit stop to refuel on some delicious kenafa--that mozzarella and crunchy filo dough drenched in honey confection that just never seemed to get old for me.

Kerak City - Making haram billboards halal

On the way there, I saw a number of young girls dressed in fairly revealing Western wear.  I pointed them out to the volunteer, and he knew that the families of those young girls were Christians and that in general Christian girls and guys dressed a little more Western than their Muslim counterparts. 

Change of Plans

A few blocks later, the volunteer and I parted ways.  I went to the bus stop in hopes of catching an afternoon bus to Ma'an, which is about 40k from Petra, where I was hoping to crash for the night.  Once at the station, I asked about going to Ma'an or Petra.  I was told that the only thing available even at 3PM on a weekday was one last express bus to Aqaba, the southernmost city in Jordan.  I didn't want to go to Aqaba to then ride up north again to Petra; so I called the PCV, asked if I could crash, and he obliged.  I went north to the truck stop where I was dropped off the first time and met up with the PCV and with a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT) who was sent to Kerak to observe a day-in-the-life of a PCV. 

Later on that evening, we got an invite for tea from a Christian family that the PCV had befriended.  Coming from Morocco where 95% or so of the country is Muslim, our walk through the streets of the Christian neighborhood seeing crosses, parochial schools, and Christian cemeteries in what is still a predominantly Muslim country was surprising.  At the door, we were met by the father of the house who greeted the PCV with the same God phrases I had heard earlier when the PCV greeted his Muslim friends and neighbors. 

We were escorted to the living room where his wife and a couple of young boys greeted us.  Even though the volunteer had told me that most Christian families don't follow the same protocol that many Muslims do in protecting their women from male strangers or segregating male and female interaction with respect to foreigners, I still hesitated when greeting his wife, who was dressed in a simple blouse and casual dress pants with no headscarf.  For some reason, I felt a sense of relief walking in.  I felt that I could probably be more myself in this home. 

The Holy Bible in 3rabia

We had a nice little chat over some coffee and some cookies.  The father spoke English and translated for his wife whenever she had something to say.  It was a very open environment.  A few boys, who happened to be their grand-kids, were playing in the living room.  One of their younger sons came out of his room to greet us, but then went right back inside to continue working on his latest techno-house-rave mix, which served as the background music to our cross-cultural exchange.  The mother half-smilingly told us that he worked as a DJ for private parties. 

The father shared some stories about some of the scuffles some Christians had with their Muslim neighbors, but he said that for the most part everyone respected each other.  He asked if I and the PCT were Christians to which we nodded yes.  I told him that I wanted to take a look at his Bible if he would allow me.  He brought it over and read a few of the first verses of the first chapter of Genesis.  Knowing already how these verses read in English, it was easy to make out Arabic words in use.  He went on to tell us that the Arabic language Bible is a closer translation than the English version because Aramaic is within the same family of Semitic languages.  He added that the Arabic translation is also much older than the English version having been translated all the way back in the 5^th century.  I asked if I could hold it.  I browsed through some of the pages and just sat in awe of it. 

For the longest time, I had associated Arabic with Islam and the Qur'an.  Here I held the very book I had read ever since I was a kid, but in Arabic.  Here was another book, considered sacred by many Arab Christians, that was written in the language many Muslims claim to be the language of God.

From then on, Arabic took on a more multifaceted look.  Not only could this language be the language of Islam, but also Christianity; of not only Muslims, but also Christians.  It was a language for all Arabs no matter what one believed.  They both prayed to Allah, but in different ways.  They both recited scriptures in the same language, but in distinct ways.  Sure, I had heard that there were Arab Christians in the Middle East, but once again just like visiting Jerusalem, meeting various people of different faiths, and seeing the Holy Scriptures in Arabic makes much of what I heard and read much more real.

More Kerak to Come

Before we left though, the father invited us to come back for a special lunch treat.  He asked his wife if she could cook up some maqlouba, which supposedly means upside down, and she smiled and said, “Yes.”  The PCV was super excited to hear this.  The dish was on my list of must-eat, must-try Jordanian meals, but all I had heard was that it was kind of like mansef with more vegetables and different spices.  If it was anything like mansef, it was bound to be delicious.

Because transits to Ma'an only ran in the morning, dining with that family would mean I would have to chill out in Kerak for another full day.  The PCV had no problem letting me crash so just like that I extended my stay for another couple of days.  On our way back, we walked back through the Christian neighborhood and then back onto the surrounding streets leading to the PCV's home.  I thought to myself, “Wow, in just one day I went back in time imagining the days of the Crusaders, had some mouth-watering kenafa again, learned a little about the community dynamics between some Christians and Muslims in this small corner of Jordan, and got to see and hear verses from an Arabic language Bible."

I would have to agree with a quote I read a while back from Saint Augustine that said, "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page."  I probably got a few pages worth that day.  Even though I was tired, I laid awake in bed as my mind raced to process, categorize, and archive all of the experiences. I finally drifted thinking tomorrow would undoubtedly bring even more surprises.

In Jordan - Reaching Amman and Tasting Nirvana

I arrived in Amman, Jordan, on Saturday, November 14, after taking a red-eye flight from Casablanca on Egypt Air. Without even planning it, I and three other Peace Corps volunteers were on the same flight out of Casablanca. They were starting their Middle East trek from Cairo; I had a quick layover before heading to Amman. Before our flight, we scoured all the money exchange bureaus at the Mohammed V Casablanca Airport and none had Jordanian Dinars or Egyptian Pounds to exchange. Knowing that I was going to come back to Morocco after my Middle Eastern trek, I kept my funds and hoped that the 25 Euros that I had kept stashed from my last trip to Europe would be enough to get through customs and to get to the nearest ATM.

I blogged earlier about my arrival to the Holy Land and the great experience I had with Egypt Air. I was fortunate to get a window seat, which allowed me to take in the scenery during the descent and ascent into and from Cairo. I'm 30 years old and I still feel like the 10 year old boy who was completely awestruck by his first flight out of Venezuela and how different things looked at 40,000 feet.

Like the experience I wrote about earlier about the mountains and plateaus making me feel insignificant or being humbled by the sheer breadth and size of nature's wonders, I feel the same when staring out from my tiny window in the sky. Ironically for me, every flight is a grounding experience. It just makes me realize how inconsequential my problems are in the scope of such vast amounts of space and over the course of time. What I begin to understand is that many of these landscapes are indifferent. Men and women have come and gone and yet they are still here changing and adapting to the elements. On my way in to Jordan, I saw various shades of sand, the blue of the Nile and the Red Sea, the Sinai Peninsula's mountainous wilderness, many dunes, plateaus, rocky hills dotted with olive trees, and a few lush valleys and oases.

The flight from Cairo to Amman was about 40 minutes. Counting our ascent and descent, we probably had about 20 minutes of coasting, and in that brief lull the flight crew scrambled to give everyone their complementary drink. It was a nice surprise to be able to walk directly onto the terminal rather than taking a shuttle or walking to it like you often do when travelling outside of Europe or the U.S. The causeway takes you straight to customs where an Arab Bank money exchange branch is at the center of the hall ready to exchange almost any currency to Jordanian Dinars. I found it interesting that a money exchange branch would be situated in the middle of the customs hall, but I guess a lot of countries do not carry Jordanian Dinars, Morocco being one of them. I exchanged my 25 Euros and got 22 Jordanian Dinars(JD). I knew coming in that the Jordanian Dinar was an expensive currency, but all the blogs I read said that most things are nowhere near U.S. or European prices. So it's little startling at first to get less money for your dollar or euro, but once you get out, you realize that a JD can be stretched out pretty far.

It was 10JD to get the visa. Some of the blogs I had browsed through before coming said that the visitor's visa was for two weeks so I was surprised to hear that the visas were now good for an entire month, which makes a lot of sense. You could traverse the country in two weeks. It's not very big and transportation to the main touristy sites is readily available, but for those who wish to take their time to meet people, taste the cuisine, and ponder the meaning of life in nature as I do, two weeks goes by in a flash.

Once I passed through customs, I went down to pick up my luggage. At the luggage carousels, I found some stands with maps and guides in various languages to the main sites in Jordan. It was a great find since all I had to go by on this trip was a Lonely Planet guide titled Middle East on a Shoestring Budget published in 1997. I was planning to travel on a shoestring budget, but after sleeping in one of the hotels this guide recommended, I decided to upgrade myself from shoestring to respectably clean. I stayed at one hotel called Jerusalem Hotel in Aqaba, and it literally was the nastiest place I've ever stayed at with roaches crawling around and the grimiest bed sheets I had ever seen, but the guide was spot on with the price. It was the cheapest of all the "budget" options. After one night in that hole, I moved next door and paid 5JD more for a bigger room, hot water, and peace of mind.

The Amman Queen Alia International Airport is about the size of your regional airport in the U.S. Once you get past customs, you walk out into the arrivals waiting hall, which has a number of snack shops, car rental stands, banks and ATMs, and a couple of cell phone boutiques. If you plan to spend some time in Jordan, I strongly encourage purchasing a SIM card from one of the boutiques. They run anywhere from 4-6JD from Orange, Zain, Umniah, and others, and the purchase generally includes 1 to 2JD of credit, which is more than enough to make initial arrangements with friends and hotels. Also, right outside the airport there's a bus shuttle company called Airport Express that travels back and forth from the airport to Amman. They have a stand at the airport and an attendant is outside asking any confused-looking tourist if they're going to Amman. It cost me 3JD and it dropped me off at the North Station also known as either Abdali Station or in Levantine Arabic as Moujemma Shamal. As the bus begins to park, taxi drivers converge near the bus's drop as they prepare to pounce on the fresh-off the plane tourists. I told one gentleman my destination and he offered to take me for 12JD. I told the guy in all honesty that I did not have 12JD and immediately he lowered the price to 7JD. I told him to lower it some more so he lowered it to 5JD and said in English, "Final price."

The guy took me through a touristy route, which allowed me to see the Roman fortress and auditorium. A ride through Amman is much like your typical roller coaster ride. The taxi drivers go just as fast as they wind up and down the many hills and valleys of the city. My first impression of Amman was not a memorable one. I thought the city lacked color, but then later I heard that it's by city mandate that the buildings use the local white and beige stone for the exterior. I don't know how legit that statement is, but it certainly seems like most people are adhering to it. The only contrast to the vanilla cream buildings are a few skyscrapers in the new city.

Upon arriving at the hotel, I asked the hotel receptionist about how much it costs to get from the North Station to the hotel to which he said, "Oh about 1.5JD to 2JD." I was hosed, but fortunately it was only for 3 or so dinares. Oh well, it was a lesson learned. From there on, I didn't hop on a taxi unless they had their meter running.

I checked into the Farah Hotel, which I had made a reservation on www.HostelWorld.com. I paid 5JD for a shared accommodation for one night. The rooms were clean, the bed was soft and sturdy, and the bathrooms were well-tended too. The lobby was also nice with plush couches, a TV and DVD player, a couple of large dining tables, and a couple of shelves full of board games, books, and bootleg movies.

When I checked in, I saw a guy chilling out on one of the couches. After I dropped my stuff in my room, I asked him about his travel plans. He told me smilingly that he lived in Jordan. Immediately I asked him if he was a Peace Corps Volunteer and he said yes. I told him that I had just finished service a couple of days ago.  He then asked me if I was Jonathan and I said yes, and then I followed asking him if he was Torin and he said yes. We had exchanged a few emails prior to arriving. He had said that he was likely going to be busy touring with some friends. It so happened that he was at Farah waiting for his friends to arrive from Palestine. I was exhausted from the red-eye flight, but I had a lot of questions about travel options and sites and then we spoke for a while about his Peace Corps experience and he gave me his lowdown on Jordan. I also shared a bit of my Peace Corps Morocco experience and gave him my lowdown on travel, food, and culture. I was fortunate to have found him and to have had this exchange on the first day of my trip.

We decided to meet up later on in the evening. I ran into him at a small fast food joint and joined him for a shawarma. The shawarma was not that great, but it was dirt cheap at 1.50JD for the plate. I was more impressed by the size of the meat spikes rotating in the fire. These spikes were probably about a meter and a half long and about half a meter wide. Some of the guys tending to it had to climb a small step ladder to shave off the meat at the top.  Some used a long knife to cut the meat and others used what looked like industrial size hair clippers. 

After the shawarma, we walked over to Habiba, a confectionery shop preparing Jordan's famous kenafa. This delicious sweet treat should rank pretty high in terms of the world's greatest inventions. The scrumptious treat has a mozzarella cheese base, a thin crunchy cake layer or stringy top that is doused in a honey or sugar-based syrup, and topped off with pistachios, cinnamon, and nutmeg on top. Every bite was like reaching taste-bud nirvana.

After Habiba's kenafa, we moved on to a cafe right on the main strip of King Hussein St. called Eco-Tourism Cafe. It was a scruffy looking place. About the only thing “eco” about it were the plants that the owner had throughout the cafe. There I got my first taste of Jordanian coffee. It was a contrast to Morocco's fancy coffee presses that squeeze out the coffee from the coffee grounds. In Jordan, you get the coffee and the grounds. Moroccan coffee also seems lighter in comparison to the almost syrupy makeup of Jordanian coffee, but as far as sugar is concerned, they're neck and neck. The coffee's bitterness is offset quite well by the generous amounts of sugar in each cup.

It was a nice first night in Amman. The following day I was to head out to Irbid with Torin to meet a couple of other volunteers. Upon arrival I had heard that L3id Kabir would most certainly fall on Tuesday, November 16. When I was drawing up my initial plans, I was hoping to avoid another sheep slaughtering, but it looked like I would be witness to yet another. I felt bad for the sheep, but at the same time I was thinking that I wouldn't object to some slow-cooked or grilled sheep meat. I was looking forward to meeting up with more volunteers and was even more excited about the opportunity to experience village life with one of them.

It had only been two days since I had checked/stamped out of Peace Corps. You would think that I would be running towards the comforts of Western amenities, but here I was wanting to experience village life in Jordan, and here I was in the hands of volunteers that were making it possible for me to do so. I felt blessed and fortunate to be part of this select group of people who have invested so much time and energy to get to know the people around them and their surroundings and who are so willing to share the little bit they know with me.

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Some Travel Details

Farah Hotel

Amman Al-Hussein Cinema St.

Behind Arab Bank

Downtown

+962-6-465-1443

Email: farahhotel@hotmail.com

www.farahhotel.com.jo 

One of the best state-run tourism websites that I've seen to date:

http://www.visitjordan.com/