Day 20 Jerash, Jordan and back to Cairo

We had a lazy morning this morning. We didn’t check out of the hotel until noon and pretty much spent the morning in the hotel room reading and packing. Our driver, Ala’a, picked us up at noon and we started our drive to Jerash. Jerash is the best preserved Roman city in the Middle East. This is the ancient city of Antioch. The Romans took it over in 106 AD. It is a huge site covering about 3 square kilometers that includes a massive central oval shaped forum surrounded by columns, a large temple devoted to Zeus (Jupiter), another large temple complex devoted to Artemis (Diana), Zeus’ daughter, and a more than ½ mile central road with sidewalks lined with columns. There is a large aquaduct and water system which provided water from the nearby river to the central area of town.








The columns that were built were earthquake proofed by putting holes in the bottom section and holes in the top section and then putting a metal piece in the holes to attach the two pieces of the columns. There was an interesting demonstration that someone had set up with a spoon between the column pieces. You can see the spoon moving which shows that the columns are actually moving. Here's the video:



The most impressive part of the city is the theatre. It is the best preserved Roman theatre in the entire world. The acoustics are incredible. We were able to stand in one spot in the middle of the theatre and hear our normal talking voice amplified throughout the entire theatre. They still hold concerts and plays here in July and August of every year.



From Jerash, we started making our way back to Amman and to the airport for our 7:30pm flight to Cairo. On the way, our driver took us to the upper class section of Amman. The houses were very large and some were very ornate. We also drove by the American Embassy. It is a huge complex that seemed to take up about 8 square city blocks. I tried to take a picture but I was quickly reminded that no photos were allowed. There were huge army tanks with armed guards surrounding the complex.

Our flight back to Cairo was pretty uneventful. We did end up eating at Pizza Hut, again, in the airport.

The first time we arrived in Cairo there was a man waiting for us right as we stepped into the terminal from the airplane. However, this time there was no one waiting for us. We were a bit upset but figured we knew what to do and where we were staying so we could probably find our way to the hotel. We got our entry visa (Egypt requires a $15 entry visa for each time you enter and exit the country so we had to have two) and went through the immigration line. We collected our luggage and made our way outside the terminal. At that point, we heard our driver, Josef, yelling my name. We were very relieved to see a familiar face once again.

The drive to our hotel took about an hour because the traffic was pretty bad – even with our speedster driver. We were pretty wiped out when we got to the hotel about 11pm. We had to be up and in the van back to the airport at 7am the next day for our 10:10am flight to JFK. We are almost home!!