Jordan adventures

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In the last few weeks, we seem to have visited quite a few biblical sites. First on the list was Mount Sinai, in Egypt where Moses is said to have received the 10 commandments.

We tried to get there for the sunrise which involved leaving Dahab at 11pm at night and starting walking about 3am. The path up the mountain was well trodden although we only managed to have about 3 torches amongst the group of about 15 people. There were quite a few "ooofs" as people walked into rocks and camels and generally tripped their way up the hill. There was a really interesting mix of people heading up - backpackers like us, a monk in long flowing robes with jangling beads, romanian pilgrims playing gregorian chants on their cellphones and the ubiquitous camel touts who waited for us at every corner - "You want camel ride?". The top was pretty chilly and we hunkered down in our down jackets waiting for the sunrise. The pilgrims kept warm by singing hymns and the touts kept warm by hassling everyone. "Blanket, mattress blanket...blanket, mattress, blanket...blanket, mattress, blanket".

Before long, the stars disappeared and the horizon began to glow. All too soon, the sun was up and big tour groups who had walked too slowly began to crowd the top, so we headed down. We took the 3,750 steps of repentence back down. This is a rock hewn path that descends off the mountain through a rocky gut. The path was built by a monk who must have had a heck of a lot to repent for.

On the way back we had a look at St Katherine's monastery which dates back to 330AD. There are still about 20 monks living here, although since it was the Coptic easter, the monastery was closed. We could only stroll around the garden and gaze up at the fortified walls.

The next stop was Jordan and we headed straight for the city of Wadi Musa - a town built to cope with the crowds who come to visit Petra.

Petra is a massive city, built in around 300 AD with many buildings, temples, tombs and houses carved into the sandstone rock. The site is enormous. We spent the best part of 2 days wandering around, clambering up the cliffs. Many bedouin people still live in the valleys here and they carve out a living selling jewellery and horse/camel rides to tourists. It is a sad fact that the bedouin children make a lot of money selling donkey rides and postcards, and so they tend to skip school to pester the tourists. The thing we loved most about the site was the fact you could roam almost everywhere. We found ourselves atop a cliff and had to jump down through the fenced off theatre to get back to the main thoroughfare.

The funniest sight of the day was seeing a Lawrence of Arabia type gallopping down the steep path to the monastery. He was wearing traditional bedouin robes and headress, his eyes outlined with khol. This was quite an impressive site until he got closer and we realised he was riding a donkey. His feet nearly touched the ground!

We then went to Madaba where we took in a few more biblical sites. First was Mount Nebo - from which Moses saw the Promised Land (it has nice views of the Dead sea and you could see the city of Jericho and the hills of Jerusalem), and then Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan, where Jesus was baptised. The Jordan river is little more than a muddy pond these days thanks to a dam upriver, but that didn't stop some Russian pilgrims from jumping in for their own baptism of sorts.

The final stop on our trip through Jordan was Jerash, an old Roman city. Very cool site.

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Photos

Street in Jerash
(Complete with grooves in the rock from chariots!)