What's New in Old News?
The official newsletter of the Peripatetic Historian. January 2024, Vol. 3, no. 8.
Welcome to the January issue of What’s New in Old News.
In this Issue:
Peripatetic Field Report: Collateral Damage
Book News
Then and Now
Let’s get started…
Peripatetic Field Report: Collateral Damage
As Christmas approached this year, we were offered a (mostly) expense-paid opportunity to travel to the southern end of Jordan, for a couple of days in the Red Sea resort town of Aqaba. Winter had finally arrived in Irbid. Each December day brought a temperature drop; overnight lows touched the 40s (around 10 for those of you working with the celsius scale). Readers living in Alaska, Minnesota, or Norway might not be impressed with this chilly anecdote, but we dwell in an uninsulated, cinder-block-and-concrete apartment. The drafts around the single-pane windows were starting to occupy too much of my thought life as I huddled beneath a blanket, typing quickly in an attempt to stay warm.
We leapt at the chance to head south for a few days and let the dry warmth seep into our bones.
Although the war is a country and a desert away, its impact is destroying the economy of Jordan. Aqaba has contracted a case of the no-tourist blues. We stayed at the lovely Marriott Hotel and felt as if we had the entire complex to ourselves. Most of the rooms stood empty; the beautiful reception area was unoccupied; no one disturbed the blue water of the swimming pool.
A walk into town revealed that the hotels weren’t the only businesses suffering. We ate at the same open-air Schwarma shop we enjoyed during our last visit, but there was only one other couple sharing the experience. Two tables occupied, thirty empty. But this represented a customer feeding frenzy compared to the restaurant across the alley, which didn’t seat a single patron during the time we spent eating our lunch.
The central market, a few streets north of the waterfront, was empty. Sad-eyed vendors shot hopeful glances as we passed. The fruit market was abandoned—oranges and apples arranged in untouched pyramids. Mary bought two green bananas for a teaching demonstration. I wondered if this was the day’s big sale.
The war between Hamas and Israel has shut down the tourism that sustains the Middle-East. In what is probably the most pleasant time (temperature-wise) to tour the region, the visitors have vanished. Jerusalem and Bethlehem have been hit hard, and the blight has spread to adjacent countries. Holy Land tours regularly incorporate a side trip to Jordan, bringing visitors to Wadi Rum and Petra. Any falloff in visits to Israel and Palestine creates a domino effect in Jordan and other countries uninvolved in the conflict.
On my last full day in Aqaba, I ate lunch sitting on our hotel terrace, overlooking the Red Sea. It was a bright, sunny day; a mild breeze shivered the palm trees and stirred the 75 degree air. I spent an hour in that delightful restaurant—alone.
I felt like Charlton Heston in the Omega Man—the last person left alive after biological warfare destroyed the earth’s population. Only the despondent hotel staff reminded me that this was a post-tourist, rather than post-apocalyptic, town.
A northward move failed to ease this discomfort. The desert of Wadi Rum was quiet—most of the tourist camps with their bubble tents were closed. Last year the red sands buzzed with jeeps bouncing visitors from one attraction to the next; this year the desert had been restored to its arid, empty contemplation.
The crowds that swarm Petra—Jordan’s most popular tourist destination—were also missing. Last year we rushed through the gates at sunrise, hiking rapidly to beat the day-trippers. This year offered no compelling reason for an early departure. The tour bus parking lot stood empty. We ate a slow breakfast and left our hotel at a leisurely 10:00 a.m.
Outside Petra’s main gate, a long file of yellow taxi cabs queued patiently for customers. How many of them would depart at sunset, unsuccessful in their quest for fare-paying passengers?
We walked, alone, through Petra’s main gate. The man working the ticket booth said that on a normal day, 200 people lined up to enter the site before the gate opened at 6:30 a.m. (I remember the experience well). Today, four hours after opening, the turnstile counter had yet to hit the 200 visitor mark.
Inside the complex we found a Petra that seemed to have more guides, donkey drivers, souvenir shop vendors, and policemen than visitors. I normally have problems taking pictures with no people in them. Not this time. Petra, like Wadi Rum and Aqaba, was dead.
It was a relief to return to Irbid, a city that, as far as I can see, attracts no tourists and is therefore insulated from a severe downturn in the travel business. Our home town was still happily chugging along, untouched by the vicissitudes of the travel industry. It might be a little chilly this time of year, but our hearts are warmed by this economic vitality.
Musical Vendors Update
And speaking of economic vitality, I need to offer a brief addendum to last month’s Musical Vendors article:
You may recall my YouTube video of the musical vendor trucks which sell vegetables and propane tanks from the streets. I certainly remember it—it was the most successful YouTube video I’ve ever made—34 views to date!
Walking home from our Arabic lesson in mid-December, we encountered a perfect jingle storm on the street in front of our apartment building. The Angry Vegetable guy had parked against the curb to unload his produce; a vendor who didn’t make last month’s video — the Annoying Ice Cream truck — was parked next to him. Both vehicles were playing their distinctive tunes at full blast.
And then, miracles and wonders, the Fur Elise Propane Truck wheeled into the street. The cacophony was a marvel…
Book News
Six Months until Takeoff
As I put the final touches on this installment of What’s New in Old News, I am also busy reviewing the final, typeset proofs of L.A. Birdmen. I call this the “correct now or forever hold your peace” draft. It is my last chance to spot mistakes—either my own or those that have been introduced through the production process—before the book is shipped to the printers.
This check is the final writing task in the job of preparing a book for the world. Once complete, my literary child will venture forth and I will sit back and see how it fares.
The book is now live on Amazon.com, available for pre-orders. Here is a handy link if you are interested in purchasing a copy. This is an affiliate link which means that Amazon pays me a little more than a dollar for each order placed. I like that. One dollar for me is one less dollar for Jeff Bezos. I doubt if he will notice the difference, but the idea of cutting into his profit makes me very happy.
One other thought about affiliate links: Amazon keeps threatening to toss me out of its affiliate program because I haven’t moved enough merchandise to make it worthwhile (to them) to keep me on. Program members are supposed to make three sales every six months to remain eligible, and I am not coming up to scratch. So, again, if you are thinking about buying the book, your order would lift the (renewed) threat of termination from my neck.
Then and Now
The Treasury, Petra, Jordan
I have spent quite a few hours this month with Johann Ludwig Burkhardt. This Swiss explorer wrote a lengthy journal about his experiences travelling from Damascus to Aqaba and on to Cairo, Egypt. Burkhardt made his epic journey in 1812. He was interested in exploring the land east of the Jordan River, a region that, in the early nineteenth century, was terra incognita for Europeans. One of the highlights of his trip was the “rediscovery” of Petra, the great abandoned city of the Nabataeans. Although widely known in antiquity (the Romans conquered the city in A.D. 106), several centuries separated Buckhardt from the last European visitor.
Burkhardt had to deceive his guide in order to win ingress into the city. Fearing looters and “magicians” the Arabic tribesmen living in Wadi Musa discouraged visitors. Burckhardt, posing as a Muslim, told his guide that he wanted to sacrifice a goat on Jabal Haroun, the mountain on which, it is believed, Moses’ brother, Aaron, was buried. To reach the holy site, Burckhardt and his guide had to travel through the sandstone canyons of the “lost” city of Petra.
After a lengthy hike through a narrow, water-cut gorge, Burckhardt reached the first great monument of the Nabataean civilization:
“On the side of the perpendicular rock, directly opposite to the issue of the main valley, an excavated mausoleum came in view, the situation and beauty of which are calculated to make an extraordinary impression upon the traveler, after having traversed for nearly half an hour such a gloomy and almost subterraneous passage as I have described. It is one of the most elegant remains of antiquity existing in Syria; its state of preservation resembles that of a building recently finished, and on a closer examination I found it to be a work of immense labour.”
Burckhardt had stumbled upon the Treasury, one of Petra’s astounding monuments.
A little more than two centuries later, the Treasury continues to resist the ravages of the passing years. The only major difference between the 1898 photograph and the image I captured last week is that the Treasury appears to have grown a column.
The third column from the left side is missing in the original photo. Actually, if you look closely, you can see a stub of the column sticking up over the bushes. Tasteful restoration has restored the cropped column to its original glory.
A New Year, a new book, and new travels ahead. In two weeks we will head to Egypt for conferences and an extended journey along the Nile valley. This will be my first time in the land of the Pharaohs and I am looking forward to examining the treasures of one of antiquity’s great civilizations. Look for a preliminary report in next month’s installment of What’s New in Old News?
Until then, be safe, be sensible,