Last night in Dubai there was an amazing electrical storm… not so amazing being in a vehicle on the road though. The place is just not set up to cope with an extreme downpour – and the drivers certainly didn’t modify their behaviour to suit the conditions!
We rose early this morning and got a Greg Murphy wanna-be to drive us to the airport. We’re sure that even Murphy couldn’t match his time… We had no hassles checking in, and jumped on the plane to head to Amman, Jordan.
When we arrived in Amman, there were black clouds looming on the horizon – and they made themselves known when we were travelling in to the city. We actually got an incredible amount of hail and the temperature turned considerably downwards from the time we landed to arriving at our hotel.
We checked in, and despite the torrential rain, decided we had to venture out. We got a friendly taxi driver who spoke sort of passable English, and he took us to the Citidel. It seems that most of the road rules are quite optional here: indicators, staying in a lane, observing red lights, talking on cell phones, speed limits – that just about covers it!!! The weather probably didn’t help – but it was just complete carnage on the roads. Closing your eyes is certainly recommended…
The Citidel is just as impressive as it looks in pictures… we went straight to the National Archaeological Museum – as we are coming back to the Citidel as part of our organised tour. There we viewed the Dead Sea Scrolls,
A piece of the dead sea scrolls
the Mesha Stele, and the Ain Ghazal statues. What struck us, is that these things are “seriously old” (just for you Stacee). The Dead Sea Scrolls are believed to be the oldest written word ever found. They date back to the third century BC. The Mesha Stele we saw is actually a copy (the original is in the Louvre in Paris) and preceeds the bible as an account of the history of Jordan and Palestine in the 1st millennium BC. The Ain Ghazal statues
One of the Ain Ghazal statues
date back to 8,000 to 6,000 BC.
From there we visited a large mall in Jordan – we needed some time to get out of the rain and dry out!
We’re off on the organised part of the tour in the morning – so we’ll definitely have more history to share tomorrow.