The Desert Castle Loop

A 7:30 start to the Desert Castle loop. East of Amman are numerous historic ruins, including castles, forts, towers, baths, caravan inns and fortified palaces. They are known as the desert castles or desert palaces. There are a number of theories about the purpose of the desert palaces. SInce most lack any defensive structure, it's believed that they were used as recreational retreats. The early Arab rulers' love of the desert led them to build or take over these castles, which appear to have been surrounded by artificial oases with fruit, vegetables and animals for hunting. Other theories suggest that they came to the desert to avoid epidemics which plagued the big cities, or to maintain links with their fellow Bedouins.

Kharana Qasr—This Qasr is believed to have served as a caravanserai, with 61 rooms.

Amra Qasr - Built during the reign of the Caliph Walid I (705-715 BC) as a luxurious bath house, it was a true pleasure palace with beautiful frescoes of hunting and baths with naked women.

Azraz - The first fortress here is thought to have been built by the Romans around 300 BC, during the reign of Diocletian. The structure was also used by the Byzantines and Umayyads. Qasr al-Azraq underwent its final major stage of building in 1237 BC, when the Mamluks redesigned and fortified it. In the 16th century the Ottoman Turks stationed a garrison there, and Lawrence of Arabia made the fortress his desert headquarters during the winter of 1917, during the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.Roman fortress

Our guide was a druze, the son of a commander who fought with “Mr. Laurence”. He gave us his tour, showed us his photographs and proudly pointed out the room where “Mr. Laurence” slept.

Baths of Hallabat and Qasr of Hallabat - Originally a Roman fort, during the seventh century, the site became a monastery, and the Umayyads then fortified it and decorated it with ornate frescoes and decorative carvings. Just past the castle (Qasr al-Hallabat) are ruins of the main bathing complex known as Hammam al-Sarah. The baths were once adorned with marble and lavish mosaics. Today, you can still see the channels that were used for hot water and steam.

Lunch with our driver at a local kebab joint- beer and kebabs.
More Islam lessons from our driver. We think he was trying to convert John. He kept saying that it would take only a few words and John could be a Muslim-he could go to Mecca.. He didn't seem to be too concerned about getting John's other half converted...just a woman. Other insights: For the Muslims, birth control is OK, abortion (prior to movement- when the soul enters the body), divorce and smoking are all OK. Not OK is drinking, not believing in Allah and sex outside marriage.
We drove back to Amman with time to see the Roman amphitheater, the Citadel (where David arranged for death of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah the Hittite) and the Archeological Museum. (Our driver always made sure he prayed the requisite 5 times/day.)

Ramadan starts tomorrow.
Our wonderful driver drove all over Amman searching for a Latefeh el-toniseih CD. He settled for a tape copy and bought it for us. He explained that one song takes about an hour—1 concert is about 2 songs. It certainly explained our ferry ride from Nuweiba to Aqaba with the televised concert. We thought that the music was just repetitive - it didn’t just sound like one song… it was one song for the entire hour.
The tape Sali bought us translated to “Far away from you, my life is miserable when I am far away from you…”