Iraq al Amir

So, this time a more picture oriented blog :-) We are still under the influence of a heat wave that brings us extraordinary high temperatures. As a prove we shot a pic inside our rental car. I tell you, this was really hot! Is is so hot that when you get out of the car you should make sure that you don't touch the outside of the car. You immediately get skin burned, no joke! On one hand we really enjoy it as this is real summer but on the other side you are just limited in doing things... temperature inside the house, and the house is build of solid rocks, is around 30 Celcius in the morning when we get up! (sunrise is around 0530 and from then on it starts to heat up...) In order to get sleep we have to turn the a/c on all night, wouldn't be possible otherwise for us as we are not yet used to. But hey, this is summer down here and we enjoy it!

Yesterday I backed up my pictures to an external hard disk, just in case... believe it or not I copied 8090 pics! And this is just the ones we shot since we are here... Once we are back we will organize an evening and we will show you all our pics ;-) (Plan to take a week off ;-)

So, yesterday Friday we got up in the morning and enjoyed a lazy breakfast and just hung out until noon. We had to turn on the a/c as there was no air at all and we started sweating early morning already. After having checked e-mails, surfed, tried to book some flights for people back home, we decided to hit the road towards Karak. We jumped into our car that luckily enough stands under a car port and started direction south. Karak is a city with a castle on the south end of the Dead Sea. After having started and already driven some 15/20 minutes I asked Katja how far it was. After a moment we found a distance chart on a car map and saw that is was one way some 190 km... hmmm... a bit much for just a day trip that starts after noon time. So we decided to stop mission Karak and engage into mission Irak Al Amir. Quote from the internet:

'Iraq al Amir (Arabic:عراق الأمير), is within the municipality of Amman in the Jordan Valley. Located about 15 km southwest of the town of Wadi Al Seer, it has a population of about 6000 people, mostly members of the tribe of Abbadi. It is located on the hills with high and medium altitude, the area has many springs, and is famous for its olive trees, in addition to other forest trees. About 0.5 km south of the town is located the so-called Al-Iraq historical site, which was built by a Persian prince in the 3rd century BC. There are many caves in the hills which date back to the Copper Age.

Although we really start to find our way and do not get lost so often (thanks to our mobile Service provider Zain and Nokia maps ;-) it is a challange to turn somewhere where you have never been before. So it took us some 45 minutes to get back and until we were on the right way to the place we wanted to visit. Amman is at around 1000m above sea level (already mentioned a few times ;-) but this time we took Katja's Tissot with with us. It is the watch with all the survival functions in it. Altitude, Temperature, Compass and god knows what else the thing can display next to the time. It was very interesting to see how the altitude dropped within minutes as the roads are very steep (sometime more than 10%!) We have a small rental and every time we go for our day trips the poor car begs for mercy ;-) as driving downmeans driving up later ... On the other side as the altitude drops, the temperature raises. The picture below was shot after we came back to our car from visiting the old Villa in Iraq Al Amir. That's by the way why only tourists go to the Dead Sea now... imagine the temperature down there if we already have 40++ in Amman at 1000 meter and they are at some 400 belwo Sea level...

To get to Irak Al Amir we had to drive towards Wadi Al Seer which is as the name says a valley (Wadi=Valley). We passed real arabic tiny villages. Interesting is that as soon there is a little bit of water, they have plants. And where plants are, you can bet all your money that you will find somebody who sells plants on the roadside. Don't ask me why but they all use old metal cans, the angled ones where they use to sell oil (like olive oil or so) in it. Sometimes you see big piles of old cans next to the market garden. They are usually not cut in two yet when they are piled up. They than take them, cut them in two and fill them with dirt and there you go! Plant ready to be sold.

Another thing that you see here are people selling all kind of goods you can imagine along the street. Usually they sell fruits and vegetables. But there is not one every I don't know what distance. There are, depending where you drive, tons of them one standing next to the other. And all selling more or less the same thing. So they usually sell zucchini, eggplants, onions and/or pomegranates.I still don't really understand the marketing strategy ;-) But next to the fruit and vegetable sellers you have the ones who sell coffee, inflatable toys for children to play in the pool, balloons, sun shields or whatever. It is just interesting and nice to see what they sell...

When you stop at the red light you can be sure that somebody walks up and down the lane trying to sell something. This is by the way the way many people buy their newspaper in the morning ;-) They also sell whatever you can imagine: flowers, fruits, T-Shirts, newspapers, glasses, toys or whatever they find to sell. One thing: they are never aggressive. They just walk the lane up and down and stop if you ask them. If not they just pass by and leave you alone. Sometimes when we see a child selling things under the sun we give him something without buying anything. Coin money does not worth much here, so Katja and I collect it in the car and whenever we can we give it away like this.

We still have not fixed all things and Katja is trying to get an insurance for the things we have here. We still have one that covers us from back home but soon it will expire. Those things are not always easy as e.g. you call them and want to schedule a meeting to discuss and he wants to show up immediately. So you tell him to show up at your convenience e.g. the day after tomorrow. He then shows up, maybe even on time, explains you everything but the forms are in Arabic or half English, half Arabic. Of course I am not blaming anybody for not having the things in English as I am the guest here and need to adaptand learn Arabic, I am simply saying that it is not easy for us as I then need to take the papers to my office to ensure that what is written is what he told me ;-)

As already mentioned a few times we are waiting to get the car next week and so far it really looks good :-) keep your fingers crossed!

A good thing in connection with the endless summer and high temperatures is that our BBQ is under heavy usage ;-) what is even cooler, is that meat here is quite affordable (especially being used to the prices back home...) So whenever we can and feel like we lite the fire and have our BBQ on the balcony. The balcony has a wall where you can sit on. So usually I sit close to the BBQ, the chips and beverages in the middle and than Katja. It is really nice in the evening when the sun went down, the temperature dropped and we sit outside enjoying the evening. Usually we eat inside as it is just more handy but after go to the big terrace and finish the evening there. We just found out that we have internet connection there! Only problem is that if you sit outside on your computer, the light of the screen attracts all kind of flying vampires...! First time we were sitting outside and we didn't know or better we did not think to use repellent, I was bit some 800 times ;-) no really, they really got me. Next day I had some 15 bits and all on one leg. Since, we always put repellent on and it works perfectly. No bits since ;-)

I still did not tell you how Iraq al Amir was... we drove down some 500 meters of altitude and arreived in a tiny village. On the right hand side we saw a big wall with many caves in it. We continued and after having taken a left we arrived at the big hellenic villa. It is very nice as it stands there nextto the village bout nothing surrounds it. Just olive trees, corn and other plants. There is an old very nice man there who opens up the door especially for you. Not too many tourists there as it is really a not well known place and not that easy to find. So we went in and you can walk around and enjoy the ruins. The below pictures were taken inside and outside the villa. As the villa has no roof (like most ruins ;-) we couldn't stay too long as it was just boiling hot. So we took the car and drove up to the caves where you can walk up the stairs (see pic below) and visit them. They are pianed black inside and as soon you enter some birds fly out. From up there you have a fantastic view down the Wadi. Just great especially as the weather was very clear (see the pic). We enjoyed it for a moment but due to the temperature we could stay too long so wee decided to head back to Amman but at least we took a different way back as one way to discover a country is to get lost... we didn't really get lost but found many very nice spots in the very closearea of Amman. In the evening we did as all good Jordanians do our grocery shopping and then...guess what? BBQ time :-)

Have a wonderful weekend, take care wherever you are in this world and don't forget to send us a message. It is quite a moment ago when somebody sent us a comment.. I start taking it personally ;-) Big hug from Amman! Missing you and looking forward seeing you all hopefully soon!









This is the second part with pictures...