Athens to Jordan

…well we looked over Jordan and what did we see….?

We woke on our first morning in Jordan to the sound of incessant tooting. After a gruelling 35 hour journey, we managed a quick whip around Athens-in-a-day before catching a midnight flight here. We are so tired, that we long to be able to see our own eyes again, although Tony tells me mine are jewel-like - Ruby and Garnet to be precise.

Athens is a stunner of a city. It is imbued with powerful history and even in the modern streets, slathered in graffiti and weighed down with beggars, it is not hard to slip into a toga and leather sandals and walk amongst the ancients in your mind. The Acropolis dominates, sitting high on a dry rocky outcrop with views across the harbours and the hills. Columned temples and crumbling urns are generously scattered about the city. As you walk, you are tracing the 3000 year old steps of Plato and Socrates, Aristotle and Herodotus, the folks who gave us the structure of our (western) thinking and political systems today. Not to mention Ouzo.

One of our favourite examples of early Democracy was the procedure developed to remove a tyrant. Citizens were asked for the name of the person they wished to remove from the ruling body. That name was then scratched onto an ostraka, a pottery sherd (cheaper and more available than papyrus) by a scribe, as most were not literate. The person who gathered the most votes was then asked to leave the ruling body for 10 years. Their property remained their own, but they no longer had any political power. Hence, to ostracise someone. Can think of a current ruler or two where this would be a handy wee exercise!

These days Athens is suffering both economically, and from a plethora of tourists. The streets stink of urine and are over-run with feral cats. There are weeds growing throughout (and on) the ancient monuments. Overcrowded trains do not run on time if indeed they run at all, nor do the escalators work. The facile narcissism of young things is on full display as they pout and primp their highly made-up faces for extended periods in front of the camera - history be dammed, those columns are merely an Insta-worthy back-drop. Stoically, the local Greeks sit and drink strong coffee in the sun in Parisian-style cafes, as if pretending nothing has changed.

Favourite Athenian quote: Oedipus, the original mother-fucker.

Our first few days in Jordan were spent in Amman. Our hotel was in the centre of town, and five times a day the call to prayer overtook the sound of horn-mad city drivers and whistle blowing police. Our hotel breakfasts were a  simple affair - pita-style bread, hard-boiled eggs (unwashed from the laying), cheese, cucumber and tomato. Grace, bring crackers if you wish to travel here. Tomatoes feature in multiple forms at every meal, and I do mean every meal. Hot showers happen, but are not guaranteed.

The houses are a built of block and limestone, and are squares set atop squares tumbling in an unruly fashion across the rocky hillsides. Each family attempts to build their own, leaving the structural supports unfinished and extending from the flat roof. This is so the first son may bring his wife, and add their home to the top of the family cube. We think it is a shit idea.

We have visited the most spectacular Roman ruins and seen stunning and painstakingly detailed ancient mosaics on the floors of churches. We explored a castle (Ajloun) built specifically to defend against the Crusaders. During the crusades, local Christians and Muslim fought side by side against the marauding aggressors, who were there only to steal the land and enrich themselves. The Pope had called for Christians to retake the Holy Land, and assorted European riff-raff saw it as a business opportunity sanctified by the Church. The local folks were successful and drove the crusaders off, only to be overwhelmed a few centuries later by marauding Mongols. We stood in front of the castle gates in the spot that would have been piled high with the bloodied bodies of hundreds of dead fighters of assorted races and creeds. What strange creatures we are.

As then, Muslim and Christians cohabit this area with apparent ease. The plentiful art on the city walls talks of unity and equality. Woman have the same rights and opportunities as men. Folks are genuinely warm and seem to embrace a 'live and let live' policy. In fact religious freedom is enshrined in law, however no-one may prosthelytise. Your religion is personal.

Today we visited Mt Nebo - where Moses is believed to have seen his first and only glimpse of the Holy Land. We stood where he did (the exact spot!) and looked out over the Dead Sea toward Jericho and beyond that to Jerusalem. Though neither of us have much time for religious practice, it is quite something to actually be in the same places as the stories that have been so formative in our culture for 3000 years. Pause a little here folks - three thousand whole years! Hard to get your head around.

We are writing this whilst sitting on a stone rooftop, on Turkish styled cushions, under a woven camel hair sun-shade. We are waiting for the sun to set over a stunning valley. It smells of goat. Tomorrow, we shall hike 16km to the eco lodge in the middle of the Dana Biosphere Reserve.

Let you know how that goes.