After two days of long car journeys, it was nice to have a day where the destination was less than an hour away. The destinations on the last day in Jordan would be Jerash and Ajloun. I didn’t know much about either beforehand, other than Jerash being a set of ruins and Ajloun being a castle.
I decided to skip the Marriott breakfast, which was oddly mostly western cuisine, and ate breakfast in downtown Amman with my driver Ali Salameen. He took me to a very famous restaurant run by Egyptians. There are just three things on the menu: hummus, falafel, and foul, an Arabic bean dish.
We were given quite a bit of falafel, but it was finished off, as such delicious food cannot go to waste. The total: 3 Jordanian dinars, less than 5 US Dollars. This beat the $12 breakfast by a mile.
Falafel
At this point, the Jordan Pass was becoming really useful, as the cost of admission here was covered as well. I don’t like to look at pictures of places before I go because it spoils the feeling I reach when making the first glance. I am glad I didn’t look at any pictures of Jerash because it was mindblowing. I went to the ruins in Rome in 2005, and frankly this set of ruins blew those away and has a fraction of the tourists.
Walking just past the entry gate was a real entry gate.
The masterpiece was just a few minutes walk past the entry, something I’ve never seen before besides images on the news of what was once Palmyra in Syria.
This was stunning, the type of place one simply glances and wonders how this was made so long ago, and how beautiful it is to this day.
From here I walked down a majestic, column-lined corridor.
In the middle of a corridor is another gate of sorts; the interior actually is domed, something I’d never seen before in this type of structure.
Further into the corridor are remnants of other ruins.
This place is an archeology buff’s dream, as picture perfect images continuously pop up.
At one point, there is a staircase with a set of ruins atop a hill.
Walking back towards the entry, there was an ampitheatre! A set of ruins with an ampitheatre, this was now just unbelievable. Who needs to go to the Colosseum when you can see something similar in Jordan? There were probably a handful of tourists here, I felt as if I had the place to myself.
Heading back towards the entry, I just couldn’t help but take pictures of the random columns popping up at every corner of my eye.
I couldn’t help but take the opportunity to snap another picture of the center from my elevated viewpoint.
Even near the entry was a building I didn’t even notice initially.
Jerash was an amazing set of ruins, probably the best I’ve ever seen, even surpassing Machu Picchu. What adds to them is most of the world is missing out because Jordan doesn’t have nearly the tourists it should have. It would be wise to visit before tourism inevitably picks back up as people look to cheaper, less known destinations.
From here, it was onwards to Ajloun castle.