We flew to Amman, Jordan and then rode a bus to our small hotel village outside Petra. While our guide in Egypt couldn’t take away from our experience, our new guide was definitely improved it. Despite being bordered by Isreal, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, Jordan is a very well managed country. The people are happy, the currency is strong, and the people seem well-to-do.
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Petra
Petra, the new seventh wonder, houses ancient temples hand carved out of the cliff’s sides.
On our first day in Jordan, we visited Petra, walking through a three mile path, surrounded by 150 foot caverns. Reds, browns, and tans layered the towering walls, giving quite a spectacle of nature’s art. At times people road horse carriages down to the site, with the hooves echoing throughout. It was probably the coolest site, not manmade, we’ve seen.
The caverns then opened up to the the treasury, the largest carved temple. Once we arrived to the treasury, you could see how detailed not only the columns were, but the decorative and detailed work of the carved building itself. The site was built to memorialize the dead. They have recently found tombs that weren’t in the stone temple but buried below the front of the temple.
Around the treasury, small caves littered the nearby hills where the ancient people lived their daily life. We explored the different sites, even hiking up 900 steps to get a bird’s eye view of the entire site and meeting this pesky cat, as you can see in the pictures.
Afterwards, we headed back to Amman, stopping a temple dedicated to Moses brother, Aaon, and then want to a shrine that housed Moses’ rock that had a stream flowing within the shrine that contained holy water.
Amman
The next day we headed to the Amman Citadel, a Jordanian museum, surrounded by Roman and Islamic ruins. This was the home of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest biblical literature with the wording inscribed on leather, copper, and cloth.
The other item of interest were the oldest statues ever found made by man. The statues still retained some of the color from the eyes and dated back to 6500 BC. We also found a mask, built from an old skull, to show what people looked like back then. Our own University of Nevada built this mask for our Jordanian museum.
Jerash
Another town, Jerash, had some very well preserved Roman ruins: a city center encircled by giant columns, a chariot arena, a sewage system, and an auditorium where Jason was forced to sing Johnny cash. Then the three guys with their bag pipes came in and started to play, which got the Jordanian kids to start dancing.
Dead Sea
Our final site may have been our best. We traveled out to the Dead Sea, the world’s lowest point and saltiest sea where nothing can live. You may not believe me when I say that you just float in the water, but that’s exactly what happens. The salt is so dense that you just float on your back. In fact I’d doubt if you sailed a boat, you’d even need a life preserver. There is no way to drown.
We then caked Dead Sea mud over our bodies, which made all of our skin very soft. And after enjoying the Dead Sea sunset and smoking one last round of sheesha in downtown Amman, we finished our trip.