Northern Hashemite Hills

Bosra to Al-Husn to As-Salt

Distance: 77 and 55 km
Time: 3:31:00 3:51:00
Max Speed: 45 and 51 km/hr
Ave Speed: 22 and 13 km/hr
Temp: 27 and 22 C
Weather: Getting cooler day by day... first days of rain!

The vast difference between Syria's flat, arid land to Jordan's super
mountainous jebels (mountains) and wadis (valleys) is startling, and a major bummer for bicyclists. We noticed immediately how challenging and slow the next segment of our journey would be, though maybe we just got spoiled in Syria and it seems harder than it really is.


Welcome to the Hashemite Kingdom

Chris and I stayed a few nights in Al-Husn, with our new Peace Corps friend Lydia, who teaches English to engineers from the surrounding villages. She regaled us with stories about her cultural adjustment and how she copes with such a conservative society, how the peace corps flow is for their group (very different from ours), vignettes from her pre-service training in a small bedouin village, and a wealth of information about modern Jordanian life. Really an awesome woman, I'm so impressed with her positive spirit and upbeat attitude that I sometimes think requires a lifetime to develop.


Chris and our first Peace Corps hostess Lydia, Al-Husn

We did manage to get out to a nearby castle, Ajloun, which sits on a forest-covered hilltop overlooking the sprawling city of Ajloun. We took a cheap bus there to avoid a roundtrip day of hills and the pouring rain and cold weather. Otherwise the weather was rainy on and off so we hunkered down with Lydia, cooked a bunch of meals together, listened to her play the guitar, baked oatmeal raisin cookies for her tutor who canceled so instead ate them ourselves, and occasionally took a walk downhill to her market for provisions.


Hot drink on a cold day


American-Jordanian breakfast: french toast wheat pides

The sun did return, allowing us to head south on the main highway. It took well over an hour to climb a long, steep jebel, which then took 5 minutes to coast down the other side. This pattern of 6 km/hr uphill followed by a quick 50 km/hr downhill rush continued for a few hours.


Mighty jebels of Jordan

I'm utterly amazed at how dramatically different the scenery is here; terraced olive groves set over endless hills in all directions. Even the buildings are in another style: painted! We passed through the town of Jerash, where a huge set of ancient ruins sits smack in the city center (we didn't go inside; I'm a bit ruined-out for awhile), then continued to a small town set on the edge of a cliff, called Suweila. From Suweila we could coast down several hills toward As-
Salt, where another peace corps couple awaited us. We eventually took a ride into town with a nice English speaking guy, thankfully, because we were unprepared for how steep Salt's hills would be. He generously took us right to their house, which is on a cliff overlooking a deep valley. Biking is not an option here!


Those are some steep hills

We stayed a few nights with our hosts James and Shaylyn, who are english and youth development volunteers. They have created a whole program they call Brain Camp, which engages students in critical thinking games and problem solving activities in a style completely outside the structured realm in Jordan. From our many discussions it seems the Jordanian school system is similar to the Albanian school system where students are taught using rote memorization and, even though they can correctly regurgitate entire paragraphs on a test, they are stumped completely when asked to dissect real information.


James and Shaylyn on the balcony


Tis the season! Our first (but not last) Christmas tree

James also took us on the official Salt Heritage Trail, a winding path up and down the neighborhood to glimpse the large Ottoman homes around the core of the city. Salt was once the provincial capital, and would have become Jordan's capital city if the railroad hadn't been built connected to Amman.


Deciphering Arabic doorway inscriptions on one of Salt's old homes

The city's newly opened museum, in the Abu Jabber house, is quite impressive, with displays of old photographs and great English-translated texts documenting Salt as an extension of the Ottoman empire, as well as it's long-standing connection to the great Ummayid Caliph in nearby Damascus. It has always been a chief trader of goods between Turkey and Egypt, and is known for growing a special type of raisin, the Sultana.


Salt's downtown wadi, modern buildings crowd the Ottoman mansions

As the sun set we wandered down back into the center wadi and through some narrow alleyways full of shops, all the while being stopped by young boys James knows through his youth groups or random connections. A big thing in Jordan is the system of wasta, which is the power one has depending on how well-connected one is through friends and family, etc. To get anything done people often "call on their wasta", which means they have some long-winded relations to someone with the power to make something occur. It's not so much a system of favors, more like obligations to help other tribe members. Anyway, James has gained a lot of wasta!


James builds his wasta as we tour through town

Shaylyn and James stayed up late into the night talking with us about all kinds of interesting things. Both are practically geniuses, having graduated from Harvard and Columbia, and impressively well-spoken considering they speak Arabic most of the day. I think by my 3rd month in Albania I had almost forgotten how to complete an English sentence and it was all downhill from there...


That's us in Salt!