On the way to Petra

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Geo: 30.32, 35.48

We stopped at 3 places on our way to Wadi Musa - Mt. Nebo (pronouced nay-bow) which is where Moses spent the last 12 years of his life after the long walk through the desert. There is
a church being built at the top which will be a huge draw once it is completed.
We then moved on to Madaba where there is an ancient church with an amazing mosaic map on the floor that depicts the 'holy world' as it was hundreds of years ago. I will add more specifics later. The mosaic is no longer complete but there is a very large part of it that shows the Jordon River, Dead Sea, Jerusalem etc.
Then to Karak Castle - the largest and late-Islamic castle in Jordan. This is a famous castle from the crusades and later refortified and used during the Ayyubid and Mamluk eras. If you have seen the movie Kingdom of Heaven this is the castle the crusaders tried to defend against Saladein. Much of the movie is historically inaccurate but some of the key people really did exist and lived in this castle. It is quite large with very thick, high walls. It was impenetrable to Saladein' s catapults. He ended up seizing the castle after 8 months by cutting off the water supply.
We finally headed to Wadi Musa which is the town that abuts Petra. There have been protests here the last couple of days over some bad business dealings where a lot of people lost a lot of money and now want the government to pay them back. For a couple of hours we weren't sure if we could come here but we finally got word through G Adventures that it would be ok. There were lots of police out today in town and apparently things are under control.

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Comments

[patchs234]

Everything sounds so interesting