Local traditions and culture in Jordan

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There are many barber shops in every town I visited in Jordan. Like in North Africa, India, Oman, Turkey etc, I never had to shave whilst in Jordan.
It is always a nice experience to get a very smooth shave by these masters with the blade.

Coffee (Turkish coffee) is a strong boiled brew of cardamom flavoured coffee. It is usually served in small cups. You have to inform the waiter how you sweet you like your coffee, as it is prepared with sugar. Let it settle before drinking, and do not drink the thick, muddy ‘sediment’.

Tea (shy) is sweet, often flavoured with mint and usually served in a glass.

There are many coffee shops in Downtown Amman, as well as the other places I visited in Jordan and as in Turkey, you see waiters delivering tee and coffee to shops.

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I think Jordanian men are addicted to caffeine and nicotine :-)
Other than normal cigarettes the nargileh (hubbly-bubbly) is a very popular local custom.
You usually find these in coffee shops, where you can order a prepared water pipe, and a flavour of your choice.
It is a very relaxing and sociable experience.

As Jordan is a predominantly Muslim country alcohol is not widely available in the country and its consumption is limited almost exclusively to tourists. Prices are very high and availability is restricted to expensive restaurants, up-market hotels and the occasional liquor store.

Beer appears to be the most popular alcoholic drink, with Amstel the most common and the best value. Amstel brew locally in Jordan though it's difficult to come across it on draught - mostly you'll be buying the canned version. Prices start from about 3JD in a liquor store, while in a hotel bar you could pay up to double that amount. Another beer to look out for is Petra, very strong at 8%, but delicious and easy to drink. It's available in a few hotels in Petra and also in Amman.

Jordan also produces a small number of wines. We tried a good number of these but none of them was exceptional.

The waterpipe, also called shisha is very popular in Jordan and you see people smoking it in cafes everywhere.
It's probaply the lack of alcohol that is partly due to it's popularity, but it is also a very social activity and even if i have never smokes cigarettes in my life, i do enjoy to smoke a shisha when i am in this part of the world.
The tobacco is very sweet as it is flavoured with fruit and it has less nicotine in it than an ordinary cigarette, so it's easy to smoke even for a person like me who is not used to nicotine.

The hospitality is a real and important value in Jordan. Any invitation (other one than that purely commercial) must be handled as such.

To refuse a sincere invitation is possible, but be aware that it is necessary to respect your interlocutor by putting to it right and polite forms, which could be not so natural for a Westerner.

OK. Let’s stay focused here people. Now for part 2 about the most useful, yet despicably foul animals in the world. For those keeping up, we are still on the Arabian Camel with 1 hump. That hump is were these guys store their food so to speak. They can live off their stored fat for week! When they do start to run out their hump droops to the side. I have never seen this, but I have also never been with nomads in the desert for weeks either.

So Mr. Camels can lose 40% of his body weight then just suck up 32 gallons (145 litres) of water to re-hydrate. Wow.

Then he has an inner eyelid, in addition to his outer, which protects the eyes from sandstorms while still letting in enough light to see where they are going. They have huge eyelashes on their outer eyelids to keep out sand and can even close their nostrils completely for the same purpose. The last bit? they have broad feet so they do not sink into the sand!

A few stats:
* Life span of about 50 years
* Gestation is 12 to 14 months
* Offspring are usually 1 at a time. 2 sometimes

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Camels are know as the ‘Ships of the Desert’ and rightfully so. They can easily survive where other animals cannot. They are amazing strong, versatile, useful, but inherently vile and evil beasts. Just remember that they are foul tempered and will happily bite you and/or spit in your face. Just keep to the sides or rear and you will be fine. There are 2 kinds of camel – the Dromedary Camel (also known as the Arabian Camel) with 1 hump and the Bactrian Camel (or Asian Camel) with 2 humps. 90% of the world’s camels are Dromedaries and these are the ones you will find all over the Middle East.

How useful are they? They can carry 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of weight, walk 20 miles (32 kilometres) a day in the desert and go without water for over a week and without food for months! Their coats can be used for wool; you can drink their milk, eat the meat (tough!), make leather from their skin and burn their droppings for fuel. Very versatile indeed!