A Joyful Jaunt Through Jordan

The usual suspects aside, Jordan springs delightful revelations at every corner, leaving Neeta Lal wonderstruck.

After ooh-ing and aah-ing over Petra and Wadi Rum—the big daddies of tourist attractions—we thought we’d seen it all. Then along came Ajloun. From our hotel in Amman, the capital city of Jordan, we drove south towards the Syrian border and the hill-fringed town of Umm Qais, where history whispers from every corner.

The 90-minute journey took us through pine forests and the olive groves of the Ajloun–Dibeen highlands. The region around Ajloun has an almost Mediterranean feel to it. The air is fresh and crisp, perfumed with evergreen oak, pine, wild pistachio and wild strawberry trees. Birds conduct their own raucous orchestra from the treetops. At roadside stalls, plump olives—in different hues and sizes—winked back at us from their jars. A cornucopia of colourful fruits and vegetables sold by the local Bedouins added more heft to the streetscape. Hamdi, our avuncular Jordanian driver-cum-guide, killed the engine and stopped for us to try some deliciously sweet bananas and mangoes.

Soon, we reached Ajloun to view its famous Qal’at Ar-Rabad (Arabic for ‘hilltop castle’). Tickets bought, we ambled past kiosks selling touristy tat and a moat bridge that cut a swathe through the castle’s east wall. A long, sloping passage led up a gradient to an older, arched entrance, embellished with carvings of birds. Stepping inside was like walking into a vintage painting, with the duncoloured fortification’s soaring towers, chambers, alcoves, and galleries silhouetted against an azure sky. As we nipped up to the top, vistas of the Jordan Valley opened out before us in shades of emerald and sherbet like a cinematic landscape. The hill on which the castle sits, Jabal Auf, overlooks three major wadis or valleys.