Jordan day 3

Up at 7am for the trip south from Amman to Petra via some very interesting places.  The day was hazy with dust.  First stop was at Madaba to visit a Greek Orthodox church built over a Byzantine chapel?? floor with a mosaic depicting the holy land.  Others on the tour enthused over this church, laden with many mosaic hangings, but for Julie and I the atmosphere was dark and oppressive.  Nothing like the palpable sense of peace in the great cathedrals. 

From there it was a short trip to a new museum depicting full size models of historical Jordanian scenes, but interestingly for a Muslim country, the museum included models of the last supper and doubting Thomas thrusting his finger into Jesus’s side.  Then onto Mount Nebo, where according to the Old Testament, God pointed out the Promised Land to Moses looking to the west, before telling him he would die before he would get there.  Presumably Moses saw a lot further than we did, because the dust cut down the visibility so that we could not see the Dead Sea, let alone the land of Judah and Jericho.  Or maybe Moses waited for a clear day?

 

                                                What Moses saw, as far as we could see.

We had a boxed lunch on the bus on our way to the 11^th century crusader castle at Kerak.  The trip was a long drive through quite high tablelands.  We both had expected Jordan to be flat and deserty but the reality is quite different.  Amman is at around 770 metres and the trip south to Kerak and then Petra was through rolling countryside, with green fields, presumably planted with wheat, and rich-looking brown soil with olive and gum trees, and of course mosques, with altitudes around 700-900 metres:

but spectacularly punctuated with two massive valleys.  The first, the valley of Arnon, plunged from 900 metres to 140 metres (Mal loves the altimeter in his watch) and the valley is grey and dry and pretty much devoid of trees. 

Then a steep climb back up to the tableland and resumption of rolling green and brown fields.  Along the way we stopped for photos of Jordan’s national flower, the black iris, which we were told only flowers for 2 or 3 weeks every spring.

Kerak has a huge, very well preserved castle full of interesting rooms and passages, more impressive than most of those we saw in Wales and England. 

Then on to Petra via the second spectacular Valley of Hasa, with the same dry grey slopes but a bit of green:

 before we climbed back up to 1,200 metres at Petra, in the dark.  Apparently the views from our hotel here in the morning will be sensational.   Early morning start for an 8km walk around Petra.