We arrive in Amman late afternoon on September 30th. It is an easy entry. We are met at the airport prior to passport control to ensure our free visas that come with being part of a tour. An agent of the tour company takes us quickly through passport control and baggage claim and out to the taxi that takes us to our hotel. Unlike most cities where there is a variety of styles and colours, in Amman they are all the same. I learn later that there is a municipal law requiring all buildings to be faced with the same creamy coloured local stone.
For almost two full days we hardly leave the hotel room. After being on the move in Turkey for five weeks we need a day off. Our hotel is not in a busy part of Amman. The hotel provides breakfast and we take enough from the buffet to make lunch in our room. Finally mid afternoon on the third day we get a taxi to Rainbow Street. It is Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, so almost everything is closed and the street is quiet. The hotel has no English-language maps of the city.
Amman is not that user friendly for tourists. On Rainbow Street we find a tourist police booth and ask for a map.
The only map he has in English is a large glossy poster-style map that clearly had once been stuck up on the wall. The streets are hidden under small illustrations of landmarks, and there is not nearly enough detail of the main downtown area.
It is however better than nothing. With the dubious help of the map, and through asking, and winding our way down unmarked staircases, we arrive at the Al Husseini Mosque right in the centre of downtown. It is busy. Amman is happening here even though many of the smaller side streets of the souq across from the mosque are closed. We hang out in the square in front of the mosque as the men come out from prayer. Many of them are immediately attracted to a large pile of cell phone covers for sale.
