Ruins on jtalbot/blog

Amman, Jordan

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 22:30:00 -0700

Another Sweet Marriott Suite

Driving into Amman was an interesting experience. It’s a big city. It’s a modern city with skyscrapers. All the buildings are white and/or glass. We wound around the city until we arrived at the Marriott Amman. It’s a very nice hotel, but there are very few properties that can compare favorably to where we stayed last night (the Al Manara in Aqaba). That was really something. The staff here in Amman were extremely generous. Not only did they upgrade us to a suite, but they also provided a gift card to eat free at one of the on-site restaurants. We went to the sports bar and had a reall good hamburger before heading off to bed.

13 Miles of Petra

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 22:30:00 -0700

Our hotel in Wadi Musa was perfect for what we needed and wanted. It may not have been as fancy as the Marriott hotels where we have been staying, but it nailed almost everything we wanted for this location. The staff, like every single person we have met or seen in Jordan, was extremely friendly and did everything they could to meet our needs and wants. What was it we needed? We needed an early breakfast so we could get into Petra before the crowds. There are approximately zero restaurants between the hotel and the entrance to Petra, definitely none that would be open as early as we would be leaving, so we really needed to eat breakfast at the hotel. They had breakfast ready just after 6 am. And that’s not all, they also packed us each a to-go “breakfast” to eat for lunch inside Petra. They really shined. We only stayed the night at the hotel, checking out before heading off to Petra in the morning. We needed a safe place to park the car with all our luggage in it, and they told us we could leave it parked in the closest parking spot to their front door all day. It really was perfect.

Mixco Viejo (Jilotepeque Viejo)

Fri, 16 Apr 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Sometime around 1450, the Chajoma Maya moved their capital to Jilotepeque Viejo in order to make it inaccessible to their hostile neighbors. The city itself had been built a few hundred years earlier and they hoped moving their capital here would help them keep their warring neighbors out. It didn’t work. They were captured and ruled by the Kaqchikel Maya and eventually removed from the site shortly after the Spanish conquest of 1524. The site was never used again.