Holy Land

 Sept 18

Check out this morning and on our way towards Petra. First stop this morning is in Madaba, to see the oldest mosaic map in the world. This map was found inside the St. George Greek Orthodox Church when it was decided to do renovations from earthquakes and floods, it had been protected and covered and only discovered when rebuilt the church. The map is from 6^th century AD. The large earthquake in 746 destroyed the village and it was abandoned.

Next we moved on to Mount Nebo overlooking the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley. There is really nothing left of the Jordan River, it is just a trickle. Mount Nebo is believed to be the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land, Moses was later buried here. 4 Popes have visited this site. The views are beautiful, it was a beautiful day and we could see Jericho in the distance, Jerusalem is a little further in the background.

We then moved on to Shobak Castle, also known as Montreal Castle. Built by the crusaders in 1115. We walked up quite a steep hill to the castle from the parking, you could see the advantage they had from attacks by building up this steep hill. Amazing how some of the Castle arches are still standing.

We are now in the city of Petra, we will visit the ancient city tomorrow. Our group of 33 is split between 2 hotels tonight. We get of the elevator and quickly realize this hotel is under major renovation. Lots of workers on our floor. We actually got pretty lucky, others had showers that didn't work, air conditioning that didn't work. Our only issue was our floor needed a good washing, there was a bit of grout that hadn't been cleaned up well, also the first morning our toilet stopped flushing. But we were the first to use our beds and pillows, so that is a plus. Probably the most annoying for us was the beeping of doors. This went on and on. Management was up on our floor still at 10 PM showing people if the beeping didn't stop they needed to slam their doors. It really was comical now to think back, but not so fun at the time.

Dinner was a lot of complaining from some. Probably the most concerning is they had our stairwell blocked off, so in case of emergency we were stuck on our floor if we couldn't use the elevator. One of the women figured this out, contacted our tour company, and stairs were finally cleared for use.

Absolutely beautiful sunset from the dining room and bar. Bar word is used lightly, they only serve coffee in the beautiful bar. Lots of the hotels are owned by Muslims, no alcohol served.

St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Madaba where you will find the oldest mosiac map in the world, from 6th century

The women here are beautiful

Freshly made pomegranate juice 

Mount Nebo overlooking the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley, believed to be the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land, also claim that Moses was later buried here

Dead Sea

Museum at Mount Nebo

ANother day, another shopping stop.  We have now figured out that when we stop for lunch there will also be shopping available.  Like other tours we have done tour guides get a cut of sales

No wild camels here, but we see many just wandering around, not tied up

Shobak Castle, built by the crusaders in 1115. You can see from where it has been built it would have been difficult to attack

View from our hotel in the city of Petra, gorgeous sunsets here both nights

Buffet at our hotel

Mountains and city of Petra