Jordan

Hi folks

Sorry for the lengthy delay between posts. The principal cause is the Syrian government's draconian clampdown on freedom of speech. No facebook, no non-goverment sanctioned media, etc. The fact that we travelled mostly through desert is also a factor...

Anyway, back to Jordan. This country is, by quite some way, the pick of the three Islamic Arab states visited.

Day 11 continued...

After our harrowing pre-ferry experience (see the previous post), we arrived in the quaint city of Aqaba. Very little to report excepting the best baba gahnoush and hommus ever!

Day 12

We departed for Wadi Rum. This is the place where Lawrence of Arabia did a lot of hanging around. The Arabs liked him a lot and being an original bunch they have named every place he visited "Lawrence [object name]" e.g. Lawrence Sprıng, Lawrence House, Lawrence Valley and so on.

While Wadi Rum is astoudingly hot, it is also astoundingly beautiful.

Sunset

Day 13 sunrise and our desert camp.

We slept uıder the stars in the center of the bedouin campsite. The previous night's dinner consisted of a variation of the Kiwi hungi. The food, consisting of chicken, potatos and onions, was placed in a large piece of silverware. Hot coals were then placed on the lid of the silverware and the entire thing then buried in the sand. Apart from the odd grain of sand it didn't taste too bad.

We then made our way to the stunning town of Petra. For the history buffs this is the Nabatean/Roman city whıch was carved from soft, multi-coloured sandstone. For the movie buffs this is the place where the final scene of İndiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed.

This is us at the Treasury.

This one required a walk up over 900 steps in the blistering heat.

And this last one is one of a multitude of amazing mosaics found ın one of the recently uncovered houses. İt's a chicken.

Day 15

We headed for Madaba. We popped into Kerak castle on route. Apparently a fıne Crusader castle it's day; you can now find the best parts of it in the walls of the local's houses. On the way we jump into the Dead Sea...

... and from Mount Nebo looked out over the Promised Land.

I'm not sure about you, but İ would definately feel shortchanged if that is all İ got after walking in the desert for 40 years. By the way, any greenery you see in the picture is from water that's been piped in.

Madaba itself is pleasant enough. We also celebrated the inimitable Jean-Marie's 21st birthday (one of the 12 members of our tour).

Day 16

We stayed ın Madaba but were able to take a day trip to Jerash. İt was more than worth the effort. I must hand it to the Romans. They managed to do far more than the locals can cobble together even now - sanitation and sewerage a couple of good examples.

Check out the air!

We also managed to visit Amman and it's Citadel where a handful of the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept.

Day 17

We leave lovely Jordan and enter Syria. See our next post.