Amman to Damascus

Amman, Jordan to Damascus, Syria

The last day in Amman I spent at Darat al-Funun, www.daratalfunun.org an arts center run by the Khaled Shoman Foundation. Several early 20th-century houses set in landscaped gardens cascade down a hillside, the complex includes galleries with the works of contemporary artists, an art library where I spent a contented hour, workshops, and at the bottom of the hill, an old Byzantine church with columns. At the top is a lovely outdoor cafe set in a peaceful shady courtyard. (T.E. Lawrence penned part of Seven Pillars of Wisdom in one of the houses.)

From there I got thoroughly lost en route to Wild Jordan. Amman is not huge but being built on hills, its streets wind round and round and can be quite complicated to navigate, especially when you are not armed with a proper map, and taxi drivers do not know street names. In the Middle East street names change frequently, so old people know the names of the streets from 50 years ago but not today, and young people have no idea of the old names. I tried several times to explain to taxi drivers where I wanted to go - I tried in Arabic and English, several otherwise innocent passers-by got involved, but I eventually thought it best to set off on foot before we tied up the whole of downtown traffic.

 

The Jordan Valley’s tombs

Amman and the Jordan Valley, Jordan

I am not sure what Ibn Battuta did about changes of clothing. Much of the clothing in my suitcase is linen, quite lovely and not remotely suitable for temperatures of -5 degrees Celsius which has been the the case in much of Syria in the last few days when the sun drops. (It is not much warmer in Amman.) It snowed in Palmyra, Jebel Ansariye and the hills around the capital. When I re-started the trip in Cairo - after divigating to Uzbekistan you will recall - it was 38 degrees Celsius and humid, and linen was perfect.

The beautiful linen wardrobe designed for me by Dabiki, www.dabiki.com a soon-to-be-launched label of lightweight linen and silk clothing for the tropics.

No longer. I was so cold one day that Khaled bought me a jacket in the souk after I had told him I was going to get a Bedouin jacket - they are made of cotton lined with wool - but wooly wool, straight from the sheep’s back.... So now I am warm but the wool of the jacket sticks to the fleece making me look like a shaggy dog when I take the jacket off. This is fine for the ‘local caff’, it is not fine for meetings with officials. It already seems as if I have been wearing the same two pairs of jeans, T-shirts, sweater and fleece for the last two months so the gathering wool bit is not making me feel better. When I next move the suitcase the clothes are going in the trash, I cannot bear to look at them any more and besides you can only wash things so many times.

And so back to the travels and yet another instance of 21st century politics making the same journey today if not impossible - difficult and potentially crippling.