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Ajlun, Jerash & Umm Qais

Northern Jordan

Tony Clemens
2005-09-01 18:46:12

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When is a refugee camp no longer a refugee camp? On our trip north of Amman we needed an infusion of cash, with the holiday that happens after Ramadan all banks and exchange houses were closed so we dropped of at an ATM in Baqaa which is the largest and oldest Palestinian refugee camp in Buried pillars at Jerash Jordan. Jordan has the largest population of Palestinian people outside of the various occupied territories and if you are willing to listen you can get many opinions about the various issues that you will not hear in the Western media, it might not all be true but it is often heart-felt. If a refugee camp has paved roads, multi-storey concrete buildings, electricity, plumbing, internet cafes and you can obtain money from your bank back in Canada using an ATM I think you can stop calling where you live a refugee camp and start calling it a town. Ah politics!

Ajlun

Ajloun is a small market town but the main reason for tourist to visit is the Crusade era castle build by a relative of Salah ad-Din, Azz ad-Din Usama. The views of the Jordan Valley from the castle are breathtaking but a visit to the actually castle never happened. We were visiting the day after Ramadan finished which is normally a three-day holiday (like X-mas many locals told us). Normally all tourist sites are open but for some reason the authorities decided to close all tourist sites for the holiday. This lasted for several hours until they changed their minds, probably because of the large annoyed crowds at Petra and Jerash but it was too late for us at Ajioun. Our guide, Steve, was immediately on the phone to find out was going on, made sure Jerash was going to be open then took us to a different site that we had not planned on visiting to make up for Ajioun not being opened, but before we left he walked us around the site and explained the history. Steve was a great guide, but expensive. He also wanted to make sure we were planning ...