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Before I realized it, a year had passed since my initial instrument flight simulator training by TWA in Kansas City. Therefore, I was due for “Recurrent Training” and ordered to report to Amman, Jordan.
Flag of Jordan.
Amman, Jordan.
The flag carrier of Jordan, Royal Jordanian Airlines, was named “ALIA,” after King Hussein's eldest child, Princess Alia bint Al Hussein.
Princess “Alia.”
The airline named after her.
Not King Hussein’s third wife, “Alia,” who perished in a helicopter accident in 1977. Instead, the new airport was named Queen Alia International Airport after her in 1983.
Queen “Alia.”
The international airport named after her.
SAUDIA didn’t have any B-707 instrument flight simulators - this is why they contracted to use TWA’s and ALIA’s simulators – hence my required visit to Amman.
Subsequently, on 16 May, 1981, I reported to ALIA’s Training Center. Where an American instructor, on leave from TWA, gave me recurrent ground school, followed by a written test, plus flight simulator checks - failing systems and setting engines on fire - in order to determine if I could remember what emergency checklists to call for, while I handled disaster after disaster. Needless to say, any pilot worth his salt does one mountain of book-cramming before attending Recurrent Training – as failure could lose a pilot his job.
It was a colossal pain in the ass, dear reader, which usually occurred once a year in an airline pilot’s life.
Their flight simulators.
This training normally lasted two days. And as I traversed the side of the plateau the airport sat on - in my hotel’s van each day - I observed a derelict train station with two, turn of the century, locomotives rusting away on a couple of sidings.
Amman’s derelict train station.
One of the derelict locomotives I observed.
Upon conducting research, I was amazed to discover I’d crossed Lawrence of Arabia’s path again!
Allow me this historical footnote, dear reader:
Had I been alive in 1908, and desired to travel from Arabia to Europe, I could easily climb aboard a train at Medina, and, after several train changes, been deposited in Paris, France. This would allow me to cross all those empty thousands of miles, of burning desert, in relative luxury and comfort.
Regrettably, this comfortable mode of transport came to an abrupt end in 1917, when Lawrence blew up sections of the Hejaz Railway between Medina and Damascus. Resulting in the derelict train station and locomotives at Amman – sitting there from 1917 – rotting and rusting away.
Even to this day, dear reader, tours are offered to visit sections of blown track, along with locomotives lying on their sides, exactly where Lawrence left them in the desert.
If Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia could ever come to an agreement, they’d get the Hejaz Railway operating again. Nevertheless, as long as they continue to bicker, the Hejaz remains shutdown, just the way Lawrence left it; so much for the myth of “Muslim brotherhood.”
Even today the Hejaz Railway tracks are still patiently waiting in the desert to be used again.
For some reason, I completed my training early and had an extra day to kill, so, at the suggestion of the hotel’s concierge, I took the tour to “Petra.”
What the Devil is a “Petra,” no doubt you’re asking yourself, dear reader. Don’t feel bad, I asked the same question.
After a two-hour plus van ride, I was dropped off at the entrance to an extremely narrow gorge, or cleft, in solid sandstone. The walls of which were rose-colored and climbed to over a hundred feet – while the passageway was scarcely nine to thirteen feet wide. Low, man-made, dry channels had been carved in both sides of this narrow corridor to move water, with occasional niches for missing statues.
The entrance to Petra – known as the Siq.
Halfway through the narrow gorge or “Siq’s” passageway.
Except what really blew my socks off, dear reader, was that it all looked too familiar! As if I’d been here before! How could this be? This was my first trip to Jordan! What the fuck?
While hiking via this winding, narrow, natural sandstone passageway – my feelings of déjá vu got even stronger – as I developed a vision of what I’d find at the end of this corridor. A sort of temple came to mind, carved out of a solid cliff face, with a magnificent sandstone crown. And, before I fully came to terms with this mental apparition, the crown abruptly materialized high above me - through a bending slot of this cramped sandstone channel.
The sight of which froze me to the ground like a Biblical “pillar of salt,” dear reader! Suddenly I’m “Lot’s wife,” trying my damnedest to figure out why all of this is so familiar!
At which point a name slid out of the dark recesses of my memory banks: Burckhardt!
When I turned 15, in 1957, I was attending high school at the sparse, desert community of 29 Palms, California, close to the Marine Corps Base. I happened to catch a movie at the Plaza Theater (the solitary indoor theater), and after the two cartoons were shown, a short-subject film was run before the main feature. It was based on the fascinating life of Swiss explorer/adventurer Johann Ludwig (or Jean Louis – as he preferred to call himself) Burckhardt.
Burckhardt disguised as an Arab.
He was born in 1784 to a rich family in Basle, and though he preferred French, he diligently studied Arabic, along with the Koran and shariah law. For he felt knowledge of Arabic culture would assist him in achieving his great ambition: to discover the source of the River Niger.
However, upon visiting Malta, Burckhardt heard of a Dr. Seetzen - who had previously set out from Egypt for Arabia in search of the lost city of Petra – only to have been murdered. Burckhardt was hooked – he wanted a shot at finding this “lost city.”
Passing himself off as “Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah,” a Muslim, and paying for protection from local sheikhs - although often robbed and cheated - Burckhardt travelled in Syria, the Lebanon and Palestine. Later, on his way south from Nazareth to Cairo, in the company of a group of traders with sheep and goats, locals alerted him to a set of ruins. They were in a narrow mountain valley, well off the road in the desert, near the Arab’s purported tomb of Aaron, the brother of Moses. Claiming he wanted to sacrifice a goat to Aaron, Burckhardt hired a local guide to lead him to these ruins.
On 22nd August, 1812, at the age of 27, Burckhardt entered the “Siq” or “Syk” (street, riverbed or shaft): the narrow, natural cleft in the rose-colored sandstone that would lead him to the lost city of Petra. He would become the very first, modern European to see it.
Petra – as it appeared in 1812.
Petra, in ancient Greek, means “Rock” (Arabic: Al-Batrā) and was originally established sometime in the 6th century BC as the capital city of the Nabataeans. Consequently, it would be visited by the ancient Egyptians, Syrians, Greeks, Romans and even the crusaders, who left behind the ruins of two castles. Petra guarded the crossroads of ancient caravan trade routes, and lies on the slope of Mount Hor, in a basin among the mountains, which form the eastern flank of Wadi Araba, the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba.
Here’s another historical footnote, dear reader. On 23rd October, 1917, T.E. Lawrence led a small force of Syrians and Arabians, in defending Petra, against a larger combined force of Turks and Germans.
Lawrence leading the attack with his ragtag, coed Arab Army.
The Turkish Army with their German advisors.
The Bedouin women living in the vicinity of Petra, under the leadership of Sheik Khallil's wife, were also recruited to fight in its defense. And I’ll be go to hell, if Lawrence and his raggedy-assed, coed Arab Army didn’t defeat the greater, more professional Turkish/German forces at the Battle of Wadi Musa (Gully of Moses).
Lawrence (left) taking fire at the Battle of Wadi Musa.
To this day I remember watching that short film in amazement as the actor, playing Burckhardt, wandered in that narrow cleft of sandstone and then got his first glimpse of the Khazneh Al-Firaun (Pharaoh’s castle – also known as “The Treasury”). A spectacular mausoleum, standing at 60 to 65 feet, literally carved out of the face of a gigantic sandstone cliff, with Corinthian columns - displaying its Greco-Roman influence – supporting a fabulous, central sandstone crown.
It always amazes me, dear reader, how events in my life seem to come full-circle. In 1981, I was retracing that actor’s footprints from 1956, who had formerly retraced Burckhardt’s in 1812!
As for Burckhardt, he subsequently travelled up the Nile and discovered the temple of Rameses the Great at Abu Simbel, with its colossal statues, and then made the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.
Abu Simbel, Egypt, as Burckhardt found it.
All of this travel and exploration at immense personal risk - had the local Arabs seen past his Muslim disguise, his life wouldn’t have been worth spit. Unfortunately, Burckhardt’s luck did eventually run out. He died of dysentery at Cairo in 1817 - age 32 – and never found the Niger’s source.
Wandering in the corridors of Petra, I marveled at its ruined temples, amphitheater and different sepulchers carved out of solid rock - which seemed to go on forever – bearing waves in the rock’s surface, in varying shades of red and white, resembling water.
“El Deir,” another temple at Petra.
The amphitheater.
Map of Petra.
Petra was chosen by the BBC as one of "the 40 places you have to see before you die". So pack your bags, dear reader, and get your gnarly ass over to Jordan. The famous producer/director Steven Spielberg did. He filmed the Khazneh Al-Firaun mausoleum at Petra, in the closing scenes to “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” My sole consolation is that I got there before he did.
Khazneh Al-Firaun mausoleum, Petra, Jordan.
Khazneh Al-Firaun mausoleum, Petra, Jordan.
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