Qasr al Abd

Yesterday several of us went on an excursion out to Iraq al-Amir, which is about a twenty minute drive from Amman located in Wadi Seer. We had two taxis rented out for several hours that drove us out there and back; the drivers ended up being an uncle and his nephew. I was in the nephew's taxi, and unfortunately I never actually caught his name. He was very indulgent; at one point I had gotten excited about a donkey (so many donkeys, so little time)(but unforunately no mini donkeys. yet.) that was tied up just to the side of the road and he stopped the taxi so that I could take a picture of it.

 

It was really wonderful to get out of Amman, even if it was only a twenty minute drive out of the city. Amman is wonderful, and I love being here, but it doesn't feel reflective of life in Jordan, especially West Amman, where I'm living. Driving out into the 'countryside' gave more of a sense of the community life that I had been expecting- kids playing in the streets, groups of people standing around talking, teenagers slumped in the shade of an olive tree on their phones. Our taxi driver often slowed down and said a greeting to someone on the side of the road, or would honk his horn as a hello as we drove past.

Our destination was Qasr al Abd, which translates to Castle of the Slave. Local legend is that it was built by a slave who fell in love with the King's daughter, in an attempt to prove his worthiness, but after it was completed the King had him executed. It was built around 200 BC (so pretty dang old!) and was mostly destroyed in an earthquake in the early 1900s, but was partially restored thanks to extensive efforts. It was originally a two story palace, with a reflecting pool (or moat? opinions differ) surrounding it and expansive cultivated lands. It was a bit hard to imagine it in all of its future glory, perhaps a fault in my imaginative capacities, but it was stunning just the same. I think my favorite detail was the lions that had been chiseled into the stone on the outside. Some of them had been well preserved while others required a bit of creative interpretation, but the amount of detailing put into them was crazy (and probably crazy hard to do).

There was a lot of crazy rock climbing and bouldering around the ruins that I did not take part in due to the whole long skirt and inappropriate footwear look I had going on. I had unfortunately decided to be an adult and do my laundry the day before, forgetting that things take FOREVER to air dry, so I was quite limited in my choices of appropriate exploring outfits. It wasn't too much of a hindrance- I was able to, in my opinion, adequately scramble through the ruins, but I definitely want to go back in pants and real shoes at some point.

We ended up picnicking in the ruins, coaxed some bewildered Jordanians to take a picture of all of us, and then drove up to some caves in the hillside that the people used to live in. There was a lot of stairs involved getting up to them. A lot. It was the kind of staircase where you start off totally fine, start getting those feelings of death about halfway up, and then reach the top and have to act nonchalant and unaffected even though you want to collapse into a puddle. I'm not really a cave person, especially when they have the slimy, stuffy smell, but these were pretty big. The ceilings and sides were streaked with soot and ash from the fires from forever long ago and the middle cave had some rubble and pits that were apparently where the King used to execute people. I was a bit confused as the 'execution cave' was larger than the one where the King supposedly lived, but perhaps the grandeur of a larger cave is necessary for public executions. Who knows.

It was a long day- we probably spent around four hours out there- and upon returning back to Amman we did not go straight home to collapse into bed, much to my dismay. Instead منذر, a PSUT student that Brandon met and who had organized the trip for us, took us to a coffeehouse for shisha and shai. The place we went to, named بيت بلدي (my country house) was really nice and had a great view off the balcony in the back, but I was pretty beat and wanted to go home so I stayed for a polite amount of time and then made my excuses and left with Katie, Jeiel, and Derek. Socializing for hours on end is definitely a huge cultural phenomenon here, but I'm not quite ready for diving head first into that quite yet. I'm more of a slowly submerge and adjust kind of gal.