Jordan

Our first camel ride

Whilst driving through the country here in Jordan I saw a dust devil, maybe a whirlwind.  Our time in Jordan has felt like a whirlwind; it has, except for the first and last day, been packed with seeing the ‘sites’.

Jerash, Um Qays, two days in Petra, Qasr Mushatta, Umm ar Rasas, Madaba, and Mount Nebo.  Plus a swim in the Dead Sea, an experience not to be missed!

Horse ride into Petra

The Treasury

Jerash and Um Qays are both ancient sites with large amounts of Roman ruins.  Um Qas was interestingas the city was mostly built from black basalt, it is next to the Golan Heights, still held by the Israelis and you can see the Sea of Galilee from there. We stopped at Mount Nebo where Moses was shown the ‘Promised Land’ and so of course you can look out over Palestine from there.  In Madaba we saw a very early map of the world on the floor of a church in the form of a mosaic, other mosaics we have seen are in the ruined churches at Umm ar Rasas and in a Byzantine church in Petra.  

The Monastry

Place of High Sacrifice

Sometimes it feels like we are ‘all ruined out’, as they say, then you walk into Petra through the narrow Siq, which is a narrow wadi dammed by the builders of the city, the Nabataeans, diverting the water through a tunnel they carved to create the entrance seen today.  This gives the city the amazing entrance seen many times in films and on the television, though this still does not prepare you for the actuality of it.  For visitors in the past it must have given them a first glimpse of the majesty and power of the people they were going to visit.
  
The famous image of the treasury tomb is what you se as you emerge into the sunlight, however, there is much, much, more to see; rock cut tombs in abundance from small simple ones to huge elaborate ones, carved into the sandstone rock face.  Sandstone of some amazing and beautiful colours glistening in the sun and in swirls in the ceilings and walls of some of the tombs, of course it has some Roman stuff as well, they get everywhere in this region, it will make a change to get away from them into India and beyond.  

Megan and Sue

Dave and Chris

Sue and Charlie

During all of this we were staying with the lovely Dave and Sue Purse (and their amazing and enormous cat, Charlie), friends I had not seen for 27 odd years and Megan had not met them at all, but she made up for lost time as usual and we really enjoyed our stay with them, the list of people to stay in contact with and see again gets longer and longer.

Um Qays