Blogs from Madaba, West, Jordan, Middle East

Staying in the largely Christian town of Madeba not too far from Amman. Spent a few hours this morning looking at the sights of the town. It’s known for the late Roman and Byzantine mosaics that have been found under houses here in the town centre. Some lovely mosaics, the most well-known is a map of the area in the main St George’s church which shows biblical places on either side of the Jordan river, including the city of Jerusalem. They think that the congregation would have stood around the mosaic while the pastor read biblical with the pictorial map to help them see where the stories happened. In the afternoon we took our hire car out for its first trip, to the Dead Sea. It was a steep descent, up here the land is quite ... read more

Bad start to today with their being no hot water for a shower. The hotel said there were was hot water between 7-9 a.m. every day, but at 8.30 there was nothing. This was despite there being hardly anyone staying in the hotel. I mentioned it to the receptionist, but he didn't seem too interested. I was happy enough to be checking out of the Farah Hotel. We decided to go check out the Citadel in Amman before going to Madaba. It was much better than expected and it was good to be at one of the highest points of the city just before leaving to see all of the spots we had been in. The ruins were also pretty impressive. We then went and got our bus to Madaba, which took a lot longer than ... read more

Mount Nebo was where Moses saw the "the promised land" and died. The tomb of Moses has never been discovered, but it's supposedly somewhere nearby a little ways down the hill. So, in many ways this is where it all started - with God the real estate agent promising land to one "chosen" people ignoring the people who were already in those lands. Following the 2nd European War of the last century, the British once again played God in the 1940's when they gave up and went home leaving the current on-going conflict for land and water West of the Jordan river to the Sea.... read more

Ahlan ya Shabab, I can't believe 6 weeks have already gone by, and only 3 weeks left! While classes have not slowed down whatsoever (starting chapter 13 Sunday) the academic experience is still very good. However, there is much more to learning a culture than just attempting to learn the language (key word attempt), but also traveling to important historical landmarks. Today, since Friday is a weekend, I decided to head West to the city of Madaba which is around a 10 minute ride from Mount Nebo. For those of you who don't know what Mount Nebo is, it is a hugely important religious site in the west of Jordan. "And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho." (Deuteronomy 34:1)." According to scripture in ... read more

We packed our bags and we left on our journey towards Amman. The next stop was madaba, a small city that is known for their beautiful mosaics. We drove along the kings highway though the countryside of Jordan. Jordan is a very mountainous county so this road is very windy and continuously went up and down and through canyons. Aside from the few villages we passes, the landscape is mostly barren and rocky desert. On our way we stopped at two crusader castles. The first was called Shobak castle, which we only visited from the outside because the tour guide said that the next castle was exactly the same, just that it was much more intact. So we drive a bit further to reach the present day town of Kerak, and visited the kerak crusader castle ... read more

After Wadi Rum we had decided to head to Madaba, a small town near Amman known for it's historical sites and mosaics. We were also excited to hear that thanks to the presence of Catholics, alcohol could be found in abundance in Madaba. Now, I must explain.....before we set off on this adventure a friend gave me one simple command “Alex, have a great time, but please do this for me.....drink the national beer of every country you visit”. There may have also been mention of photographing the evidence, at which I have failed, but as for the drinking of national beers, I have been doing quite well. Jordan, being an Islamic country, has rather a limited selection and availability of alcohol. Indeed I didn't even know if there was a national beer. But there is ... read more

We decided to make our way north to Madaba, with a couple short stops at Karak (a Crusader Castle) and the Dead Sea. We hired a car and driver to take us (joined by our new Portugese friend, Felipe) and set out early in the morning from Dana. Our first stop was Karak, which is a huge Crusader castle famous for many 12th century battles between the Crusaders and the Muslim armies of Salah ad-Din. We wandered through the very well preserved underground tunnels and up on high rock walls 450m above the valley below. From Karak we made our way down to 400m below sea level to the Dead Sea. Once there, we took a few dips in the saltiest body of water on earth and floated with absolutely no effort at all. The water ... read more

Well, it wasn't a three-day weekend, but Fred and I still rolled out of Amman after classes this past Thursday to get a break. We've both been to Madaba numerous times, but we've never been to the hot springs of Hammamat Ma'in before in all of our Jordanian adventures. It took us quite a while to get out of Amman though! We went to the northern bus station, one of the easiest, or supposed to be, hubs to get out of Amman. I've never seen so many people waiting for a bus though. There was a policeman who would occasionally grab people and shove them around if they tried to jump onto the bus through the windows. It was like watching a pack of monkeys. As soon as a bus would arrive, about ten people at ... read more