Blogs from West, Jordan, Middle East - page 4

8/6/13 hongkong my clock on the ipad says 2.45am so im guessing thats sunday morning in nz wow I've been up for a while! But i got to watch django on the plane which I've wanted to see for ages. I'm at the ymca which i just found out stands for young women's christian association, so its ywca Lochlan didn't mention that bit. Rooms pretty basic and a shared bathroom. Missing brent, my dreams keep drifitng to that horrible night, maybe its effected me more than i thought. I'm glad i got a shuttle from the airport, its a while away and theres heaps of people and crazy drivers, also its raining. I'm not to far from some main shopping streets by the looks of it, i'll check it out tomorrow, along with my awsome new ... read more

Our first stop this morning was at the Greek Orthodox St George's Church in Madaba. This church is renowned for the 6th century Byzantine mosaic on its floor that shows the entire region from the Nile Delta in Egypt in the south to Jordan and Palestine in the north. The detail recorded in this early map is impressive. Just a few more kilometres by road found us at Mount Nebo which has been a centre for pilgrimages since the earliest Christian period. It is also reputed to be the burial site of Moses who climbed the mountain to view the Holy Land before he died. Unfortunately at present the peak of Mount Nebo is largely obscured with construction works. The historic church atop the mountain has been restored, but is now having a larger church, sponsored ... read more

Wednesday - Dead Sea - Bethany by the Jordan, Mt. Nebo, Madaba, Shawbak Castle to Petra We leave the Dead Sea and head to Bethany beyond the Jordan, where Jesus was baptized. It was already hot hot hot by 9sh and on our way we could see Jericho off in the distance. Imagine 2 penguins in the desert…that was basically equivalent to 2 Canadians in the desert this morning, melting… We arrived at an area where we had to wait for a shuttle to take us to the sites and the Jordan River. We walked on a pathway and visited the Baptism site and then onto the Jordan River. Sian stepped into the Jordan River where they were baptizing people from the other side and to her surprise it wasn’t shallow. We visited the St. John ... read more

Overnight at the Dead Sea One of the things I was looking forward to most of my trip to Jordan was getting to float in the Dead Sea. This weekend I got to go! 7 of us loaded up in cars and drove from Amman to the Dead Sea. Not too long of a drive at all. Maybe 50-60 mins I think? The scenery along the way was gorgeous and the music and company kept the ride entertaining. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on land on Earth, meaning the drive there from Amman was all downhill. Our ears popped every once in a while as we passed desert hills and small cliffs until we reached the mountains. The Dead Sea is located in the Jordan Rift Valley, so in the hotel we had a ... read more

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