Geo: 25.27, 55.33... read more

Geo: 31.9494, 35.9329We started this morning from Petra and drove about one hour to Wadi Rum. This is a national park in the middle of the desert. The scenery is spectacular. We transferred to a 4 wheel drive (which had seen better days) and headed into the sand amongst the rocky mountains. Wadi Rum means Valley of the High Mountains and it is certainly that. There are many high sandstone mountains and the ground is all red sand. We climbed up one of the sand dunes and then stopped at a Bedouin camp for hot tea. In this area Lawrence of Arabia was active in 1917 during the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. We saw his face carved on a rock near the Bedouin stopping place. We spent about 90 minutes driving through the sand, ... read more

Geo: 30.1451, 35.3979Yesterday was a travelling day. We left Jerusalem at 8am and crossed in to Jordan via the Allenby bridge border. We were met by our guide and driver and then commenced the long drive to Petra. We stopped for lunch at a roadhouse where we had tast Jordanian food, the Hommus was to die for, then continued through mostly desert landscape to our hotel at Petra.They have WiFi available in the lobby(including the bar) for only $5 for our entire stay so I am making the most of it.Today we left the hotel at 8am to go to see what is one of the wonders of the world and a place I have dreamed of seeing for a very long time.We rugged up as warmly as we could. It is very cold here and ... read more

Geo: 31.7738, 35.2252This was a very long day but we visited many places all to do with the New Testament. We left Jerusalem at 6-15am and drove to Tel Aviv where we changed cars and set off for the day. We were a small group again. There was a young woman, Teiko, from Tokyo and a lovely young couple, Rebecca and Bram originally from Melbourne but working as lawyers in London at the moment. Our guide was Jacob who certainly let us know how much he knew. He told us he had two PhDs, one in Biblical Studies and one in Ancient languages and he could speak 14 different languages including the ancient ones. He did know his stuff but was fairly bossy.Our first stop was at Nazareth where we visited the Church of the Annunciation ... read more

Geo: 31.7738, 35.2252Arrived here yesterday after spending the day travelling from Sharm el Sheik. The first section was a 3 hour drive through the Sinai desert to Taba. This was interesting, though rather monotonous, as the scenery did not vary much from stony mountains and bare desert sands. The last section of the road ran along the side of the Gulf of Aqaba where they are building many resorts. There are also smaller camps where local people can hire a small cabin for a weekend at the beach. Across the water we could see Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Crossing the border was fairly straight forward and relatively quick. Once on the Israeli side we waited for our driver who didn't appear. A couple of phone calls later he turned up and drove us to Eilat airport. ... read more