Karak and Madaba

Trip Start Aug 19, 2008
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11
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Trip End Jul 04, 2009


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Saturday, October 4, 2008

Day 4 in Jordan took me to Karak where the hotel hooked us up with this sweetest old man whose family is from Karak. We were told by the hotel people that if the guards or anybody asked us we were to say that he was family, and one of us was his family and we were all traveling together. It was quickly decided that he wasn't my family...I'm not quite sure why though ;-). We drove on the King's Highway which is a highway that goes through a canyon and apparently is 1200 m different in depth I think. It was definitely a windy road but really great scenery none the less. We drove by the Mujib Dam, which was pretty cool. At Karak we visited this castle called the Karak Castle and from what I gathered it was at one time occupied by the crusaders. The old man took inside the castle and explained what each thing was used for, I think he may have been making things up but it was still fun and interesting. 

The best part of the trip was meeting some of the local kids. We had parked in front of a little convenience store, and when we got back one of the little boys proudly told our driver that no one touched his car. We bought drinks and sat around with the kids and waited for the traffic to clear up a bit so we could get driving and head back to Madaba for the night. When we were waiting we were talking about how awesome it would be to give out the Canadian pins at that moment. So next time I'm traveling I have to remember to pack a couple of those Canadian pins just in case we run into some local kids that would love the pins.

That evening back in Madaba we wandered the streets and found a souvenir shop that was most definitely different from the others. The first thing was that his English was amazing, and he knew were Toronto was and even Manitoba! This shopkeeper was an old man named Yousef, and if you type in Madaba in Google his name should pop up as the best quality items you can buy (I have not done this yet). He's an interesting character, a retired banker who opened a souvenir shop so he could talk and interact with people. He invited us in for tea, and we accepted and he talked about how he knew about Toronto, apparently his family house is quite old, and some university students from Toronto came to Jordan to do an archaeological dig, and they're digging at his family home in their backyard and they're finding things of historical interests. We also got to talking about where we were staying, and apparently he's related to the owners of the Black Iris Hotel...crazy world. He also had some belly dancing outfits and other outfits the Bedouin women where, so he encouraged us to try on some outfits. It was quite the evening of dress up.
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