Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig

  Karak, Jordan
Friday, May 8, 2009

The Tower Hotel was only a minute's walk from Karak Castle; our morning’s destination. One of the biggest castles in Jordan, Karak Castle had its fair share of tour buses and happy-snappers. The castle was built on the top of a huge hill, with sheer drops on all sides. It was accessed by a boardwalk, although originally the entrance was via a drawbridge (I know – cool, huh?!)

The castle was renowned in its day for its innovative defence measures. Apart from its superb location giving a 360 degree view of the surrounding lands, the bottom third of all the walls were constructed to be perfectly smooth, so anyone who somehow managed to climb up the rocky walls beneath the castle would simply slide down once they reached the actual castle walls.

In true Jordanian style, there were very few safety measures in place, so the boys and I spent the morning crawling through ancient rooms and tunnels and scampering across walls and battlements. The car was due back in Amman that night, so we set out up the Dead Sea Highway, many sights yet to be seen before home time.

Detouring off the main drag, we stopped by the little-known ruins of Ar Rabba nestled in the midst of a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. I was delighted to discover that some of the walls had actually been erected on a foundation of fallen columns from earlier ruins. Twenty minutes further along the same road we passed through another small town, and followed the brown signs to Al Qasr. The ruins were surrounded by a fence, with a locked gate, but after some investigation we discovered a gap around the side allowing us to hop right through. Danny and Ben amused themselves by climbing up onto the ancient columns whilst I covered my eyes and scolded them loudly. The site was littered with huge stone pieces of the columns, about one meter thick and with a diameter the same height as me. They looked like ancient stone wheels scattered around the place, although I don’t think they were rolling anywhere.

Our next stop was called Um Ar Rassas, and looked to be only another half an hour down the road. We continued on, following signs through the vast Jordanian landscape. We passed through Wadi Mujib (optimistically referred to as Jordan’s "Grand Canyon"). It was really beautiful, although not quite to the scale of the real Grand Canyon, and I enjoyed the slow drive down through the canyon to the bridge far below. Out the other side we continued towards Um Ar Rassas, following brown signs which lead us out past tiny shacks and along potholed roads.

We wound around and around, following occasional signs, whilst I peered at my map wondering where the hell we were. The combined stubbornness of the group kicked in, and we all resolutely pressed on, determined to find Um Ar Rassas. We drove and drove, eventually finding ourselves at the end of the road, almost at the King’s Highway. Oops...not where we wanted to be...

We turned around, I trying as best I could to navigate with our dubious map, the boys looking out for street signs. Eventually, after retracing our steps, turning around, then getting more lost than ever, we spotted a local, and I convinced Danny to slow down so I could wind down the window and ask for directions. Not speaking any Arabic, I leant out, and asked “Um Ar Rassas?” hopefully. “blablah Rassas?” he responded, in a thick Arabic accent. I nodded and smiled, and he pointed at a turn-off. We looked at each other, looked at him, then with a grin and a wave we followed his directions and headed off. Only a few minutes later and we were pulling into the carpark of what looked to be a newly constructed visitor’s centre (not much use if no one can find it!!) HOORAY!!!!

We leapt out of the car and practically ran towards the building (I was also busting to use the loo at this point!) After making use of the facilities, we encountered a security guard, who advised us the site had just closed for the day. Well. Were we shattered! We begged him to let us stay for just a few minutes to have a look around, and he shortly agreed. He said he would let us in and show us around.

So the guard led us through the ruins towards a large building resembling an aircraft hangar. We chatted with him, and he told us about himself and about the site. He was a Bedouin (the native nomadic desert people), and he told us a little about his people (including the word “habibbi” – 'dear friend’ or ‘my love’ if you’re a woman). He also explained to us the Islamic burial custom of facing the graves towards Mecca, which is why all graves in an Islamic cemetery face in the same direction.

We reached the huge building, and as we entered he explained that it had been built to protect the church inside from the elements whilst it was being excavated. Inside, we entered an ancient church, walking on suspended boardwalks, and looking down we saw that the entire floor was covered with intricate mosaics. This was much more detailed and better preserved than any of the mosaic floors we had seen up to this point, and we were amazed at the enormity of the work. The guard pointed out another room to us, the floor of which appeared to be just large stones. We looked closer and could see at the other end however,  the stones had been pulled up and underneath was a layer of sand, some of which had been swept away to reveal more mosaic work. The guard explained that hundreds of years ago the floor of the church had been covered with sand and then paved over, in order to preserve the ancient mosaics. It was only a few years ago that the mosaic floors were discovered, hence their unblemished condition.

He lead us to a smaller church outside, and we walked through the arched doorway onto the stone floor. We crouched around a hole where some of the stones had been removed, the dirt underneath showing through. The guard grabbed a small stick and dug around in the dirt, until he found a tiny cube of stone. He explained that this was originally from the mosaics, but that groups of Bedouins who used to roam this area regularly dug up the mosaic floors, convinced that there was treasure concealed beneath. As a result the surrounding area was scattered with tiny square pieces of stone under a light covering of sand.

We spent a while longer wandering through the ruins marvelling at the archways still standing after hundreds of years; their structural integrity making them the only survivors amongst the rubble.

Our next stop was to be Herod’s Castle. Herod is the bad king who tried to get baby Jesus killed. He is also famous for having John the Baptist beheaded and for his starring role in the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar.

Well, old Herod certainly got lucky on the real estate market, cos he had a prime location - great sunset views, easily defensible – but unfortunately for us this placed the remains of his castle at the top of a very big hill (where else?!). And so began another race to beat the sun. Convinced that we weren’t going to make it up there for sunset, I sat in the passenger seat with Danny’s camera madly taking happy snaps of the setting sun through the hills around us as we wound up and up.

The sun sank lower and lower as we dodged herds of sheep lounging across the road.  We spotted a brown sign pointing in what seemed to be the right direction, towards the place of death of an Islamic prophet. A little unsure but trusting our instincts we followed the sign, and to our luck we soon saw the castle on the hill ahead. Turns out St. John the Baptist was also an Islamic prophet – small world eh?

The sun was dipping below the horizon as we pulled the car over in the carpark, jumped up and hurtled up the last steep descent to the castle. I puffed and wheezed as I reached the top, catching my breath as the final glimpses of the sun disappeared behind the distant hills. We had made it with only seconds to spare. The view was magnificent from the site of the ruins, and we danced among the columns as the sky changed to velvet behind us. We all basked in the absolute stillness and grand vastness that surrounded us, at the top of a peak in the middle of the Jordanian landscape. We were completely alone, apart from the bleats of lambs and goats echoing through the hills. The sun had set, and it was past eight o’clock. We had only a couple of hours to get the car back to Amman, and thus we returned to our trusty vehicle for the last great race of our roadtrip.

We made it back with no problems, were welcomed back heartily by the staff at Abbasi Palace. We greeted them like old friends and happily recounted the adventures of the previous days, enjoying the feeling of returning; of coming home.