With only three days remaining before my parents returned to America, it was time to relax, reflect, visit holy sites, and slather ourselves with mud (not necessarily in that order). We had just left the Israeli/Jordanian border, and with Moumayez Taxi legally unable to pick us up anywhere outside of the Amman city limits (they apologized profusely to me about this over the phone), we were forced to pay 2.5 times more money for a half-hour ride to the Mövenpick hotel on the edge of the Dead Sea. C’est la vie.

Bear in mind as you read these next few paragraphs that Jordan has essentially no other industry besides tourism, and that the Dead Sea is becoming world-renown as not only a luxury resort location but also for its medicinal properties. Amusing to think that less than a kilometer away from the hotel giants of Marriott, Mövenpick, and Kempinski, young Jordanian men in their underwear are splashing about and drinking Pepsi from across the highway they bought for the equivalent of 50 cents. But hey, stop thinking about that! You’re a tourist and you’re going to enjoy this several-hundred dollar experience! (note: I’ve never done that whole underwear-and-Pepsi thing myself, but it’s nice to know that it’s available if you don’t mind being the white spot in a sea of tanned Arabs.)

Enjoying the sunset at the edge of the Dead Sea

If I could sum up the Mövenpick in a single odd analogy, I would call it a painted egg: good to look at on the outside, but nothing but [hot] air on the inside. I’d stayed at the Marriott before back in January so I do have some frame of reference here, but the Mövenpick was just hilariously unprepared and mismanaged, much like dealing with Orange Telecom. For one thing, my mother had made our reservations 2 weeks ago for a three-person room, and I had called them to make sure under no uncertain terms that it was a three-person room (something that unfortunately the Marriott simply wouldn’t hear of, or else we would have gone with them and the whole Mövenpick episode could have been avoided). Upon arrival at 5 PM, we were told that the 3rd small bed hadn’t arrived yet, but they’d be there within 10 minutes to deliver it. 3 phone calls to Customer Service and 4 hours later, the bed arrived. We found my parents’ beds to not have any topsheets on them (only comforters, which have as much use in the tropical-temperature Dead Sea area as igloos). The internet was wired-only and the hotel charged JD6 per hour to use it. In comparison, Bethlehem Bible College had let us use their wireless for free, not to mention how almost any American hotel will now give free wireless to customers. At the Italian restaurant within the resort that we chose for dinner, they poured us two bottles of “Penna Agua” water, without our request, and then charged us JD5.500 for them – each. In comparison, a 2-liter bottle of Aquafina water in Amman costs about half a dinar.

For me, one of the most annoying issues was when I wanted to utilize the Hertz company’s “shuttle bus” to return to Amman to pick up Aaron’s car to use for the next day’s sight-seeing around the holy locations of central Jordan. I spoke with the Hertz representative in the main lobby, ascertained there was a shuttle leaving at 5 and 10 PM, and told him I’d be there at 9:30 to pay JD10 for my ticket. When I returned several hours later, the same representative gaped fish-like at me and said that he thought I meant 9:30 tomorrow for the morning shuttle, and that there was no shuttle because no one was using it.

I’d had it by this point; I leaned over the desk, and growled: “Sir, if you want to pretend to play the Western 5-Star hotel game, that doesn’t just mean you get to charge like our countries do. It means that you have to act like them too. Which means management, precise service, and when your brochure says there is a shuttle at 10 at night there had damned well better be a shuttle at 10 at night.” Not exactly the most Christian thing to say, but this sort of incompetence is what I’d expect from a JD20 hostel in Petra (which was actually completely and totally acceptable) not from a JD220 “5-Star” resort on the Dead Sea. In retrospect I wish I’d been more polite, but I needed to get back to Amman, as Aaron was already up past his bedtime waiting to give me the keys to his car. My mild explosion worked, in any case, and for JD10 I got a private car and driver to return me all the way to Aaron’s house. It turned out to be a very pleasant car ride, as my driver was a friendly, politically-minded man who worked for the Jordanian Communist Party and had a lot to say about the anti-monarchy groups operating in Jordan. It was a very informative ride, and he gently refused my effort to tip him.

Am I a bad son for filling my father's beard with mud? Probably. However, he got his revenge by rubbing said mud into my hair, so I guess we're even.

Like that car ride, it wasn’t all bad. The Dead Sea itself was excellent, although a bit choppy, and my parents enjoyed splashing tentatively about in the waves and then coating themselves with the thick, gooey gray mud in large jars sitting on the shore. My dad utilized his copy of the Brodhead Free Press to have the typical photogenic pose of the floating-recline in the sea. It would have made for a better picture if the waves hadn’t been a half-meter high; he looked like he was about to capsize and shipwreck at any moment, although the Dead Sea as always prevented him from coming to any harm. And although the water served at dinner was far to expensive, both the dinner and the included buffet breakfast the next morning was delicious. At check-out time the next morning, I argued with the manager until he removed the unrequested water from the bill, so there’s a happy ending for everything. Needless to say though, I won’t bother to return anytime soon and I don’t recommend them to anyone else, either.

Just a regular day for dad, reading the newspaper while floating in salt water in the holy land

In rapid succession, we visited the Baptismal Site and then Mount Nebo, two important Biblical sites. Like I was when when I visited back in March, my parents seemed a little disappointed that the actual baptism site had no water in it, thanks to the summer heat. In fact, in March there had at least been at least a small layer of green muddy water from the winter rains, but of course none of that remained by this point. The price was slightly cheaper, too – JD7 per ticket as opposed to 8. I tried to coax my mom into using her water bottle to fill up with some free “holy water” but she was starting to feel a little sick and wasn’t ready to give up her main source of drinking water for the trip. As before, our tour guide ended the simple tour by explaining that eventually the Jordanian Tourism Board would add several more sites to the ticket price, including excavations of what they believe may have been John the Baptist’s lodge and other buried treasures. As with everything in the Arab world, any request for a date is greeted with a knowing smile and “insha’allah.”

We took a steep-sloped route up the side of Mount Nebo, taking in the view of the Holy Land that Moses viewed thousands of years early. Although I’ve been up the mountain several times, this is the first time that I’ve been there on a sunny day in the morning, so the Brazen Serpent statue was caught in good sunlight and I was able to see the detailed metalwork on it. A marked change on the mount was the rapidly-growing Temple of Moses excavation and rebuilding on the summit, something that had barely been started six months. Who knows – perhaps “insha’allah” may come sooner than I had thought was possible here!

With the village of Madaba only 10 minutes away, we were able to easily reach the Church of St George to view the famous ancient mosaic. Like I had, my parents enjoyed the usual find-and-compare search between the guidebook and the actual mosaic to find Jerusalem, Karak, Bethlehem, and what would eventually become the Allenby bridge crossing between Jordan and Palestine. There was a baptism of an Arab Christian baby going on at the same time, performed by a priest with a ponytail and heavy spectacles. Some might have complained about the loud cries of the child, but I thought it was good to know that this ancient church was still in active use by the Christian community.

Groups of tourists search for familiar sites in the mosaic, while a baptism is carried out in the background

We finished off our evening with dinner at the wonderful Haret Jdoudna restaurant, where I had come last month with Cycling Jordan for an iftaar meal. I can’t recommend Haret enough; there’s a reason it’s won “Best Restaurant in Jordan” several times. As was the case with Fakr al-din last month with my coworkers, the key is to eat as much of the delicious, varied, and cheap mezze appetizers as you like first, and then if you’re still hungry, enjoy a kebab or grilled chicken main course if you’re still ready to go. I think that we were able to keep the whole bill around JD30 for us, which I felt was more than fair.

For the last and final day of my parents’ visit, my mother was unfortunately unable to visit the Entity Green Training center with my father and I because that sickness that had started to creep up on her the previous day at the Baptismal site had come upon her in full force. Majid gave the two of us a ride to the site, where Wamidh, the other teachers, and many of the students greeted us joyfully. Several of my students from my very first session back in November-January had returned to take new classes, and they listed off their classmates that had since been accepted to emigrate to America. From the sound of it, I was pleasantly surprised that as many as 80% of my first-session students had left the country after less than a year, and I hope that the rest are able to join them over there soon. My father, “Abu Zach” became an instant celebrity as well, with everyone patting him on the back and welcoming him to Jordan and to the center. Wamidh and I gave him the official grand tour of the site, which was helpful because my brain was still fried from so much Arabic-English translation over the past two weeks and Wamidh took much of that off my shoulders with his immensely better language skills.

Posing with Wamidh and Talal in front of the admin building

After returning to Amman to get mom, who was feeling moderately better, the three of us took one final trip down to the Bel’ad to find souvenir gifts for family and friends back home. Mom wanted a dishdasha for herself and one for my little brother, which I was able to work the shop owner down to 60% of his original asking price. It worked out perfectly to finish off the last of their Jordanian dinars, and they were prepared to return to America without having to declare any foreign currency or exchange anything.

Even though mom would rather that he had been packing for the flight, Dad asked me to take him to my neighborhood salon that he had read about, for a cheap and stylish haircut that would be ever so popular with the ladies. I warned him that sometimes the Arab Man’s idea of a haircut is to have it buzzed down to a centimeter and smeared with gel, but he was willing to gamble and he came out on top – and for only JD4. You can’t even think of getting a haircut for that price in the states; what the Arab stylists can do might be limited but what they do, they do very cheaply and professionally.

My stylist, Assam, poses with his most recent foreign customer

And that’s that…the end of my parent’s 15-day trip to Jordan and the Holy Land. I went with them to the airport (using al-Moumayez, of course!) and they told me that they had loved meeting everyone and the kindness of 99% of the people they’d met in their travels. In particular, of course, they loved Wadi Rum and Amar, our rambunctious young guide – so much that they told me of their plans to name their next kitten after him. If their kitten develops a love of leaping and jumping, they’ll know why! I love being a tour guide (as both Christine and my parents can now attest) and I hope that more of my friends and relatives might want to come to The Jordan as well ;). It’s strange to think that in only a little more than a month, I’ll be back in America on holiday vacation and seeing them again!