Qasr Amra

I'm sure I've posted other pictures of the Qasr Amra before, although who knows. I'm closing in on a hundred Jordan posts, which, considering how much I love it there it's rather surprising that I don't have more. Qasr Amra is a feature on what is usually referred to as the Desert Castles tour that many folks participate in on a trip to Jordan. It's about fifty miles of so to the west of Amman as you head towards the Iraqi border. Qasr Amra is not actually a castle, per se, but rather a bathhouse. Cyndi and I visited it on our first Jordan trip, somehow didn't on our second, and we did again on this trip. In addition I visited it on my first trip to Jordan over fifteen years ago. A visit to it wasn't, oddly, on the first itinerary for this last trip, but Qasr Amra was prominently featured in one of our class readings so we talked to our great friend Fadi from Petra Moon Travel and it reemerged. Then when we got stuck in Montreal for a day it disappeared, but we fought to bring it back and I'm glad we did. It feels so different from traditional Islamic art/architecture, but it perfectly reflects its origin during the Umayyad period. The Arabic world had just begun to expand, and suddenly the center of the political universe wasn't Mecca or Medina but rather Damascus. This placed the Umayyads in contact with a much broader intellectual and artistic world, and it's reflected in their art. The bathhouse itself is out in the middle of nowhere, and it certainly was a universe all to itself.

Not a place where you would naturally expect to see a broader intellectual or cultural universe displayed.

A bathhouse scene you might expect to find in Rome, but not in the Jordan desert.

A true rarity, a zodiac.

A very talented bear.

You can clearly see the Roman/Byzantine influence.

A little pockmarked, but you can make out the monkey.

Amman Takeout

So, what do you do when you're on the bus in Amman and you're running late? Obviously, the same thing you'd do in the US, except that you wouldn't cave and go to McDonald's. Instead you'd grab some takeout shwarma.

The box looks promising . . .

. . . mmmmm, shwarma.

Cyndi and Eric

I don't really have a long detailed story behind this post. Rather, it's just a picture I snapped on the last Jordan trip of my great friends Cyndi and Eric. I've proposed that I truly believe it was the best trip we've ever run (despite a number of challenges) and a lot of the reason for that relates to these two. It's not surprisingly that in the middle of the Great Isolation we'd reflect upon our friends even more, but I don't need much of a nudge to know how blessed I am to have these two in my life.

I think, although I'm not certain, that this was snapped at the poshier of the two theaters at Jerash.

Money Shot

Usually with every trip there's that one money shot, the one that's so perfect that it makes the entire trip worth while. I remember a picture I shot in Petra once that managed, in one frame, to capture a Bedu riding a camel, a Roman road, and Nabataean ruins. On the Namibia Trip of Mystery I think it would have to be the pictures from Sossusvlei, not only because they're beautiful and haunting but also because it was that forlorn place that led me there for my birthday in the first place. Now that I need to fill up the walls of a new apartment I'm going to be making a much more concerted effort to run off actual physical pictures.

Here's my favorite picture from Sossusvlei, the money shot. I described in on Facebook as my official lonely shot from the Great Isolation.

And here's a version where I was tinkering with the darkness a bit. Neither of them ended up looking as good here as they do on my phone, sadly. I may just print them both up and see which one looks better.

Sossusvlei

And here are some actual shots of Sossusvlei itself. The name itself means something like "dead-end marsh," and, as I've written before, it's the otherworldly place that inspired the journey to Namibia in the first place. My initial goal was to be exactly here on 7 January 2020, but I couldn't make the logistics work. As the desert advanced the trees themselves were trapped and have survived there, completely dessicated, for centuries. It's just about the most desolate, beautiful and spiritual place you can possibly imagine.

Path to Sossusvlei

It's rather amazing that I haven't posted more on the Namibia Trip of Mystery, although since then I've led a student trip to India, faced down the travel challenges of a pandemic, fought the crushing sadness of being dumped, transferred all my classes to online, wrote a ton on my Aeneid chapter, and survived (so far) the Great Isolation. Come to think of it, I guess it's not that surprising. Nevertheless, I need to get more of the Namibia material up.

Here are some pictures of the path to Sossuvlei, that amazing spot with the centuries old dessicated trees surrounded by the monstrously huge (some over a thousand feet high) sand dunes. Sossusvlei was the place, more than any other, that drew me to Namibia in the first place. As Steve Wehmeyer likes to opine, if there's a desert I will find it.

And you can see Big Daddy, the biggest sand dune in the background. It's over a thousand feet high, and it's all sand, not sand covering a smaller stone mountain.

And another view, giving you a sense of the incredible beautiful desolation.

Yeah, the climb just about did me in, and I didn't get anywhere close to Big Daddy. You can see Sossusvlei itself to the right of the picture. In about a hundred yards or so I bailed and headed down.

And a shot about halfway down the dune.

And a shot of the parched earth of Sossusvlei, as I made my way down the fine, reddish shifting sand.

We're Still Open

Despite the challenges provided by the COVID-19 pandemic we're still open at the Food Shelf, thankfully. I missed the first couple weeks after returning from India because of enforced self-isolation, although less for the India part of the trip as compared to passing through Heathrow. Then I missed another week because I was feeling slightly under the weather for a couple hours on a Thursday afternoon. Any other time I would have assumed I just didn't sleep well that night (who is sleeping well right now, other than sociopathic presidents, I suppose) but in this day and age I decided to not chance it. Happily, I was able to get back to the Food Shelf last week, both Thursday night and Saturday morning. It was busy both night, and I can't help but think that the numbers are going to explode in the week to come as more and more people get laid off. We take our preparation very seriously, including all of us wearing masks and gloves, washing our hands frequently (even while wearing the gloves), and practicing social distancing even inside of the Food Shelf. None of the customers are allowed in, and instead we just have them come up and stay in the car, while we bring out pre-packed boxes and bags. Truthfully, in addition to helping out, it's also made me feel a hell of a lot better, and it's helping a bit to overcome the loneliness and sadness caused by the pandemic-inspired isolation and also the breakup. I'm now leaving the house three times a week: Thursday and Saturday for the Food Shelf, and Sunday for a quick trip to Shaw's.

Yes, appropriately masked gloves and socially distanced. Amazingly, and although you can't see it, we're also smiling.

A typical pre-packaged box. This is a picture I've shared on Facebook on Twitter. You'd think the toilet paper alone would get people to rally.