The Dead Sea and Mt. Nebo

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pics uploaded from Turkey

The Dead Sea, camping on Mt. Nebo, and crossing the Syrian Border.

Leaving the Petra area, we drive North to the Dead Sea. Everyone knows that the shore of the Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, something like 438 meters below sea level. I guess I always thought maybe this was a sort of low plain, but in reality, at least on the Jordan side, the hills rise rather quickly, surrounding the sea with fairly high vistas.

Of course we swam in the Dead sea, marveled at how buoyant we were, were VERY careful not to swallow any or splash any of this toxic brine into our eyes, and we were quickly able to identify any bites, cuts, or scratches we had as the salt water on those areas stung like you would expect.

We washed off the brine with bottled water and drove to Mt. Nebo.

Mt. Nebo is where Moses is thought to have viewed the “promised land” for the first time. There is a church on top which is undergoing some restoration, but is very nice and peaceful. Also a museum with pottery shards, old stone points and so forth excavated from the area.

Then we vistited the town of Mabada and the Greek Orthodox church of St. George, with a school for boys, and other activities associated with it. This church was founded in 585 AD, has some nice floor tile mosaics and spectacular large paintings which did not look as old as the church.

We camped for the night back up on one of the high ridges of Mt. Nebo, across a small ridge from a Jordanian army post. This camp site was spectacular for its view of the Dead Sea and the surrounding area of steep, rocky, dry desert hills. It was also very windy, but all in all a great place to camp.

This area is dotted with army posts, gun emplacements and so forth all facing Israel. Of course I don’t have any pics of these but they were interesting to look at.

Amman, Jordan and the Syrian Border
We next drove to Amman for a couple of hours at the Safeway store there. I guess our guide needed some supplies for the truck, and we needed some chocolate bars for lunch….Apparently there isn’t much to see or do in Amman, so we drove on to the Syrian Border.

We had heard that American tourists would be detained and interviewed by the Syrian police, but this turned out to be just another paranoid rumor. We passed out of Jordan and into Syria with no interviews or interrogations, no search or inspection of luggage, and it only took an hour or so.

Syria is supposed to be a cheap place to shop for mid-eastern souvenirs, rugs, backgammon games, etc. It is quite different from Jordan, that’s for sure. Jordan seemed cleaner, more orderly. Syria looks dirty, broken, poor, trash everywhere….more like Egypt.

We are camped in Damascus in a walled enclosure with a very nice grass area for the tents, clean showers, clean squat toilets, and a covered area for our food preparation and so forth. We will be here two days, and then on to a bush camp.

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Photos

View from Mt. Nebo
Maybe Moses sat here and viewed the Dead Sea and Israel

Swimming in the Brine
This is a really strange experience

Syrian Bedouins camping
we saw lots of these camps