Jordan vs. Egypt (No Contest)

I’ve moved on to Israel, but I don’t think that I’ve written enough about how much I enjoyed Jordan, so I want to do one last entry in which I discuss how much Jordan rocks. One way to do that is to compare it to the country I visited immediately before Jordan, Egypt.

Here is some advice that nobody will take: If you have an opportunity to visit either Egypt or Jordan, choose Jordan. Nobody will take this advice because everybody wants to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. As somebody who was just there, let me tell you that Petra is much more impressive. The sandstone carvings into the mountains, high into the mountains, are breathtaking throughout the city, whereas the pyramids are large collections of stone. The pyramids are huge, but they have very little else going for them. The structures in Petra are absolutely beautiful. Point – Jordan.

The capital cities also stand in stark contrast. Cairo is a megalopolis of 40 million people (counting Giza and the surrounding area), while Amman is much smaller, but still a good-sized city of 2 million. The biggest contrast, though, is that to say Cairo is dirty is to insult “dirty.” If you’ve followed this blog at all, you realize how much I love the bigger cities. Cairo, however, is just a sty. Despite some impressive landmarks, the whole city is crawling with garbage. Amman, on the other hand, is a very clean city with white buildings, sidewalks that are actually walkable, and is not suffering from severe overpopulation, as Cairo is. I’d like to go back and spend more time in Amman. I can’t say that about Cairo. Point – Jordan.

I do have to give Egypt some credit. Once I got outside of Cairo, it was a beautiful country, at least along the Nile. The Nile cruise that I was on was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Still, Jordan wins this battle. Jordan may be the most beautiful country that I’ve ever seen. From the port city at Aqaba, looking out over the Red Sea, to the red sands and mountains of Wadi Rum, the clean cityscape of Amman and all of the mountainous landscapes from the roads in-between, I’ve never seen such consistent beauty. Point – Jordan.

If Egypt has anything going for it, it is that the country is much cheaper than its neighbors to the northeast. Still, Jordan is not very expensive, as I came to appreciate once I crossed the Jordan river into Israel. Still, economically, I guess it’s a point to Egypt.

Don’t get me wrong; I think that Egypt is worth visiting, with the possible exception of Cairo, and the farther south that I went in Egypt, the more I liked it. Still, and I can’t stress this enough, if you can choose only one, you definitely should choose to visit Jordan.