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Zaid and Charlene's entry: We decided today would be a good day to go on a circuit trip of old desert castles to as far east as Azraq - approximately 200 km from Amman.
We started the day fairly early and drove out east towards Azraq. After about a half hour drive out of the city, we quickly went from semi-arid but still somewhat green Amman to pure, beige desert. After another half hour or so we hit our first desert castle - Qasr Kharrana. The Islamic castle was built in ~700 AD I believe as a meeting place for local tribes and various travelers. It was two stories, had about 66 rooms on each floor, and some really nice cravings in the walls.
The next castle that we hit was called Qasayra (Little Castle) Amra. This was definitely the best castle for a couple of reasons. The backdrop of the structure was really eerie because a storm was approaching, the design of the castle was really neat (looked like something from Star Wars), it was in relatively good shape, and it had amazing and detailed frescoes within. People suspect that the "castle" was used used as a hunting lodge. It also was a bath house having chambers for hot, then warm, then cold baths. The frescoes were quite amazing detailing paintings of hunting activities, bathing activities, and also a bear playing a banjo-type instrument with a monkey clapping along!?! I think this castle was from ~700 AD too. Just before leaving we went in to the bedouin gift/tea tent and had tea with some bedouins. It turns out that the person we were talking too was from a tribe that was allied with my families tribe in the North of Jordan - our families know of each other quite well. He was quite welcoming and offered that his mom would make me a custom dish-dash (long arab "dress"-type garment for men).
Our next stop was a detour from the castles as we stopped in the town of Azraq to visit the Nature Reserve there - Azraq Wetalnds. The Azraq area is a lush, green "oasis" in a sea of sand. It was designated as a Wetland of Internatioanl Importance under the Ramsar convention but since then has undergone catastrophic drainage. Work is underway to conserve and rehabilitate the site. I won't dwell much on this as it was a short stop (only about 6-700m of trail) but it was quite nice taking in a little natural beauty amidst rest of the day.
The next catsle that we stopped at was Qasr Azraq which wasn't actually a castle but a Qala'a (a fortified city). The ruins were in pretty bad shape but the castle itself was huge and there were some neat stuff inside like steps up to some good lookouts, old carved blocks, and other things. The "castle" had residences, a market area, and a mosque which was quite well preserved. I can't remember when it was built but considering it had a mosque I'd say it was around 700 AD more or less.
The last castle were stopped at was Qasr Hallabat which was on the return trip from Azraq ~100 km NE of Amman. A few km before the castle was an old bathhouse though I can't remember what it was called and I don't have my book with me. It was neat since you could see the remnants of the pipe system which they used to heat the water for the hot baths. Then we hit Qasr al-Hallabat. It was nice looking from the outside. That's all I can say about it though. We decided not to pay to go inside since our book didn't really recommend it and it had already been a long day. Charlene got her money's-worth though as she was more excited to watch the shepherd with his goats than look at the castle. She got more pictures of the animals than the castle. Ah well...
- comments
Michelle That's so amazing that you met someone along the way who had ties to your family...and they offered to have traditional garb made for you! Trust Chuckie to be more enthralled with the animals ;) We have goats here for goodness sakes!
Zaid Very good point about the goats Michelle :-)