JORDAN 

6th March - 16th March

AQABA

I liked Aqaba immediately, mainly because its clean and prosperous streets were full of clean and prosperous people driving clean and prosperous Mercedes, so if I was doomed to end up as a Middle Eastern road statistic I’d at least go out in style. It was unlikely to happen here though, because – and while there were a few unpleasant surprises awaiting us in Jordan, this was one of the pleasant ones – Jordanians in general observe the road rules in a most un-Arab way. Apart from dawdling sheep the most dangerous hazard on the road actually turned out to be me, but I get ahead of myself.

We took a taxi from Aqaba port into the town centre where we parted ways with Micha, Lea and our Japanese friend who went off in search cheap digs. We were in the market for something a bit more luxurcous and soon found an excellent mid-range hotel right in the heart of town. For the hard-bargained sum of A$26 we scored a spotlessly clean top floor room which was positively palatial after Al Fairoz and offered all the comforts of home and more; a bar fridge to keep the Amstels chilled, scalding hot water, a colour TV on which to catch up on the gripping People’s Congress of Libya we’d left behind three hours ago in Nuweiba and soothing maritime views across the head of the Gulf of Aqaba from Taba in Egypt to Eilat in Israel. Around six a flaming sunset burnished the scene in bronze and as night descended the riding lights of the half dozen freighters on the gulf formed a fairy bridge across to the far shore where the lights tapered away in a graceful arc to the south. It was hard to believe we were surveying some of the most contentious real estate on the planet.

Not having washed properly since the Gezirah we showered extravagantly and hobbled off to explore the streets of Aqaba. The town’s strategic location has always attracted the keen interest of passing invaders and has at various times homed the fleets of Solomon, the fabled Tenth Legion of Rome, the Crusaders and the revered Arab warrior Salah al-Din. The floodlit ruins of the old Ottoman fortress captured by Lawrence of Arabia and Sherif Ali during the Arab Revolt of 1916-18 stand on the foreshore and nearby archaeologists have recently begun excavating the site of a medieval settlement called Alia. Coming from a country where European history goes back only 200 years this confluence of ancient and colourful cultures fascinated me. Here was an architectural and historical diversity absent in the shrines of Egypt.

Aqaba has been Jordan’s gateway to the sea since the wily King Hussein, in a deal only an Arab could have done – selling sand to the Saudis - swapped his neighbour a few acres of worthless dunes for 13kms of Red Sea coastline, including Aqaba. Now the fortifications have given way to comfortable five-star hotels which line the Corniche to accommodate the droves of well-heeled domestic and international visitors who come here during the high season for the moderate climate, the water sports and to swim with the exotic creatures of the Red Sea.

And speaking of King Hussein, here’s an interesting fact: he came to power in 1952 and is the world’s longest serving monarch. Well, I think it’s interesting anyway, because it makes Jordan a remarkably stable and safe monarchy smack-dab in the middle of the most volatile region in the known universe.

After a leisurely feed of spicy kebab halabi at a corner restaurant we took a creaky turn around the central block. There appears to be only four kinds of business in modern Aqaba; electronics stores, cheap and cheerful eateries, photo-processing labs and barbers. There were also lots of tea shops and we were just passing one on the way back to the hotel when we heard a “Hey, how’re ya doin’?” It was Christopher Stallone. He was playing backgammon over a glass of sweet tea with a comrade from his hotel and filled us in on his adventures since St Catherine, which was only yesterday though it seemed like a week ago.

“I was waitin’ for you outside the Al Fairoz and this guy came along in a taxi lookin’ for business. He’s just come up from Nuweiba and didn’t want to go back empty so we did a deal and he took me down. I dug myself a hole on the beach and slept in it (yup, they breed ‘em tough in Boston), then caught the cattle barge over today.” This was the ferry we’d seen leaving just as we pulled up at the dock this morning and he’d only been in Aqaba about as long as we had. He looked like he’d been here for days.

We made tentative plans to meet in Petra two days hence, but as we left him this time I knew we’d probably not see Stallone again, mainly because his schedule was too punishing for us. As it happened however, our reasons for missing him were quite unexpected.

 

*

 

A cool breeze wafted in off the gulf as we finished a breakfast of boiled eggs, pitta, jam and tea at a little café around the corner from the hotel and set out to get some films developed. Shopkeepers were setting up for the day, dragging postcard stands and displays of tourist tatt out onto the sidewalks in the morning sun. The postcards featured either eccentric local marine life or scenes of Petra, and the baubles were mainly keffiyahs (the distinctive Arab headdress), twee plaster casts of Petra’s famous Treasury building or bottles filled with coloured sands in a vast array of sometimes arresting patterns. We tried a couple of processors before Tess sniffed a deal she could work on and while she was thus engaged I made a grave mistake – I stuck my face in the barber’s next door to enquire after the going rate for a quick trim.

He already had a client in his chair but his mate Ali Barber, who had a cuttery down the road, had dropped by for black coffee and a morning chat. He followed me out of the shop, “You first customer today. I give you good price. How much you pay?” Did I really look that green?

“I don’t know yet, I want to shop around. But when I know I’ll come and see you first, alright?”

No, it wasn’t alright. “Where are you from? You English…” and so on. He followed me for fifty meters, “…I give you best cut in town. My shop is this way, please. You very handsome…” The bloke had no scruples.

By this time Tess had caught up with us. I wheeled around and fixed him with my pissed off teacher glare. “Look,” I enunciated every syllable, “I will come and see you when I am ready. Now we are going, and you are staying. Shukran and maas salaama!”

We fled into the central market and wandered through the hubbub of early business, past stalls overflowing with fresh fruit and vegetables, rank fish vendors and butchers with unrefrigerated poultry and flensed goat carcasses with heads still attached slung from hooks. Coarsely whiskered old men sucked casually on tall bubbling hookahs, played backgammon and sipped glasses of black tea.

You’ll never guess who was waiting for us as we emerged from the other side of the souk. We sprinted past the Blue Mosque and down to the flash hotel precinct on the Corniche. Here we found the JETT office – Jordan Express Tourist Transport - where our enquiries about a connection to Petra, one of the world’s most famous historical attractions a mere two hours north of Aqaba, met with incredulity, as though we were the first idiots who’d ever asked to go there. If we were prepared to jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton and wait till the next full moon we could get a bus to some turn off in the middle of nowhere then walk the remaining 30kms. It would not be the last time we came away from a Jordanian bus station feeling like victims.

Resigned to rustling up some punters to share a taxi to Petra we walked back uptown in a state of mild distraction. It was then, with my defences momentarily down, that Ali Barber pounced from a darkened doorway.

“Here is my shop. You come in please.” I went in. “Sit here.” I sat there. We settled on a price for a trim. An old man, perhaps his father, lurked on the window seat smoking furiously and reading the newspaper backwards. Ali unfurled a sheet with a great flourish and placed it over me. He lit a cigarette, planted it between his lips and the performance – for he was an artiste – began.

In the mirror he looked like a nutty surgeon sizing up where to make his first incision. He danced around the chair surveying the terrain of my head through the smoke wreathing up from his fag, rhythmically snapping his scissors and stroking my hair with a long comb. This went on for a minute or two before he brought the scissors close and snipped a bit from above my left ear. With the first cut out of the way the tempo increased, the constant flick of the comb and the hypnotic clicking of the scissors lulled me and I fell to watching the world outside in the mirror. Occasionally Tess appeared in it, giggling face pressed up to the window. Almost too late I came to my senses, realised Ali had nearly taken the lot and called time. I left the shop looking like a bowling ball with a five o’clock shadow and it would be many weeks before enough fur grew back to keep my ears warm.

We repaired to a café and were reviewing the options for getting to Petra when up rocked Micha and Lea.

“Why do you cut your hair so short?” Micha said.

“I’m glad you asked me that…”

When they finished laughing they told us they’d hired a 4WD. Assuming all Australians must be 4WD experts, they insisted we join them for a leisurely motor up the King’s Highway to Amman. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that, far from being Crocodile Dundee, I’d never driven a 4WD, let alone a left-hand drive, and gratefully accepted their generous offer instead. Transport problems sorted.

Next time: Rum...