kings highway

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today we left madaba and headed down the kings highway first stop was herods palace the fortress of mukawir where it is supposed herod beheaded John the baptist this palace was built similar to masada on to of a steep hill though not as steep or as high it only took us about 30 mins to walk up and even Esthers mum made it up, from the top we had a 360 degree view impossible to capture on film today was much clearer than yesterday and we could see Jerusalem in the distance.



from here we drove parallel to the east coast of the dead sea stopping wherever there was a view through to the dead sea between the mountains, one of these was the wadi al mujib and we stopped overlooking the al mujib dam which leaves the river below dry



next stop was the Kerak castle at Al Karak here we bought some Arab mens headress (keffiyeh) and then looked through the castle a series of rooms and passageways above and below ground built by the crusaders it was a hot day but very cool inside the castle

after having chips for lunch we drove on towards petra stoppping only once more to see Dana reserve a wadi quite wide and deep leading out to the Araba desert

half an our later we are sitting on the bed of our luxurious room at the Amra Palace international only 2 km from the entrance of petra

we are looking forward to our visit to petra tomorrow Esther wants to ride a donkey!

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Photos

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wadi zarqa main

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view from fortress mukawir Esther and Ruth

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remains of herods temple fortress mukawir

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Esther Danny David dead sea in the background

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Tom Danny Ruth Cameron Jordan and Esther at Mukawir

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Me and Esther at Dana Reserve