As I said in my previous post, Karak is just a quick one night stop for me on my way south. I woke up early in Madaba and had to first take a bus back to Amman and then transfer to a bus heading to Karak. It was all fairly easy to accomplish, though I get strange looks and genuine confusion from locals when they find out I want to take the bus instead of paying a small fortune for…
A couple of easy buses from Irbid and now I’m in Madaba, just a bit southwest from Amman. Madaba is a fairly quiet town and has the largest population of Christians in Jordan. That’s not to say the Muslims don’t have a presence though. Every morning the Imam’s call to prayer can be heard everywhere as in most towns, but here it’s immediately followed by the ringing of the church bells. Most of the sites and cities throughout the region,…
After about an hour and a half bus ride from Ajlun, I based myself in the university town of Irbid to the north. Irbid is a very busy and bustling city, the second largest in Jordan, and it never seems to stop. There’s very little here to interest the tourists, but it makes for a great base to explore some more Roman ruins here in the northern part of the country. I’ve noticed that most of the tourists seem to…
A short bus ride to the northwest takes me to the village of Ajlun, nestled in some hills surrounded by pine and olive groves. Beautiful! Ajlun really has only one attraction, a huge castle on the highest hilltop, Mt Auf. It was built in the 12th century to defend against Christian crusaders and apparently saw a lot of action. You can see everything from up there. It’s definitely one of the better castles I’ve been to in my travels. And…
Time just seems to fly by because another three month work assignment has ended and I’m already back to wandering the globe. This time I decided to explore some of the middle east, beginning in the capitol city of the kingdom of Jordan. It was called Philadelphia for much of it’s history and in the bible it’s referred to as Rabbath, but nowadays it’s Amman. It’s been a prominent hub of trade for thousands of years and consequently, conquered and…
Only two buses after leaving Juwangsan National Park and I’m now back in a big city, Gyeongju. Before the Josean dynasty, Korea was in what was known as the three kingdoms period because the peninsula was divided between (any guesses?) three kingdoms, the Baekje, Silla and Goguryeo. The Silla was founded in 57BCE when six small towns decided to unite under one king and started violently taking over other towns until the kingdom spanned the entire southeastern part of the…
Tigray is a region of northern Ethiopia rather than a specific location and just happens to be the last area I’m exploring on this trip. So why explore this region aside from the vast and stunning mountainous landscape? Tigray is famous for its rock hewn churches, most of which are anywhere from 500 to 1500 years old. Ethiopians liked to build their churches in caves or carve them high up the mountains right out of the rock in order to…
Every trip seems to have one section that doesn’t quite go according to plan, and I think this section is it. After my Simien Mountains tour I was supposed to go straight to Aksum, but was told instead that I would have to spend the night in Debark and go to Aksum in the morning. Morning came and my ride didn’t show up. I then spent the whole morning trying to arrange a ride in a town with no local…
After an extremely short flight over some beautiful terrain and Lake Tana, Ethiopia’s largest lake, I’m now in another former capitol of Ethiopia, Gondar. The rule here started with emperor Fasilidas in the 1630’s after a couple of centuries of great instability. The empire was ruled by him, then his son followed by his grandson and remained stable until about 1730. After that every emperor that took the throne found himself murdered under suspicious circumstances and the empire slowly disintegrated….
From the chaos of Addis Ababa straight to what is arguably the most popular tourist destination in all of Ethiopia, Lalibela. The town sits at almost 7800ft above sea level and the green hills and mountains all around are just stunning! You need to be in shape to be here because every street and walkway is on a definite tilt. Most of the history of Lalibela is steeped in mystery. It apparently rose to prominence with the Zagwe empire when…