Roll Jordan Roll
Trip Start
Jan 14, 2008
1
11
16
Trip End
Jun 14, 2008
Aqaba, Jordan
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Anyway we were ready to be out of egypt. Jordan is way better. The people are nicer, more open minded, there's shawarma eateries everywhere so its not hard to find food, and the air is cleaner and the ground is not littered with trash. Our new guide says that jordan is the 53rd state. And in some ways its been a comfort to be here and see things that we didn't realize would make us feel more at home, like a regular looking cop car.
The landscape in jordan is much more interesting than egypt. Its still the desert but there's rock mountains and hills and more vegetation. At Wadi Rum its similar to Monument Valley in Utah, but softer looking. We had a wonderful pickup truck safari through wadi rum, where we drank the local Bedouin herb tea and watched the sunset.
Petra was amazing! We had no idea that it was an entire city, only knowing about the two main buildings that were in the Indiana Jones movies. We spent 10 hours there, and still we felt like we didn't see it all. But we were very tired at the end of it. Almost more beautiful than the actual buildings carved into the stone, was the walk into the canyon that led to the Petra buildings. Its the only formation like that that was formed by tektonic movement and not water. It looked like what we thought Glen Canyon might have looked like before the dam flooded it. The colors of the rock were orange, red, brown and yellow and they flowed together to make waves of color that looked like paintings.
We visited the Dead Sea the following day. The Dead Sea is 33% salt and the water is so blue, and the shores are caked in white salt so the sea looks like a huge geyser pool full of the earths minerals. Which it is. We swam or rather floated in the water and then caked ourselves in the mineral enriched mud. It was a fun experience. It was hard to even stand up in the water because you just end up floating. And the Dead Sea is dead in a sense. There is no life form that lives in the water, except for maybe some bacteria. It was nice to swim in natural sea (though its more like a large lake) without having to worry about sharks and stuff. But you can't go underwater because if you get the water in your eyes it burns so bad that you can't even open them.
On our way to Amman we visited Mt Nebo where Moses is suposedly buried and where god showed him where the holy land was.
We also visited a church in Madaba where the oldest map of the middle east was found and preserved. It was a mosaic on the floor and a lot of it was ruined during a huge earthquake in 65 AD or something like that.
When we arrived in Amman we were in awe of how fancy the houses were until we realized that we were driving through the rich people section. But most of the city was very nice and very clean. Mostly all the buildings are made out of white limestone, and next to the green trees it all looks quite nice. If anyone wants to visit a middle eastern country I would recomend visiting Jordan. Plus the food is really good here and very fresh!
We are off to Istanbul now and then Greece.
Take care everyone we miss you all!
Keetch and Adam
