Crusaders and Barbie Dolls

A longish drive today, with stops to see things on the way.

First up was a history lecture in the bus about the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael and Lot which spawned the various tribes, clans and issues still identified with today, and then a stop at Mt Nebo where Moses spent 12 years, and is reputed to have died - though they have never found a grave. From this great vantage point, you can see the Dead Sea, Jordan Valley, the Jordan River, Jericho and, on a clear day, Jerusalem. It wasn't one. Maybe Moses spent 12 years up there waiting for one to fulfill the promise of seeing the Holy Land. Whatever the reason, that's as far as he got.

They are restoring the church and memorial for Moses built on the top of the hill for pilgrims to visit, and it was closed to visitors, so there wasn't much to do apart from admiring the view along with bus loads of other people. There were some well preserved mosaic floors temporarily housed in a tent nearby which were interesting to look at, but it was basically a site on the catholic pilgrimage trail, so every visiting catholic was lining up to have their picture taken next to the statue commemorating the pope's visit, beside the tree that he planted, walk the trail that he walked and so on.

Then on to the town of Madaba, and a visit to St George's Mosaic Map Church. In ancient times when people didn't have their own bibles, paintings in the churches called icons were used to tell the stories contained in the bible to the people. Picture books really. Well, St George's have a huge mosaic map on the floor which also served to teach the people the geography along with the stories. The mosaic map reaches from the Sea of Galilee in the north to Egypt in the south, and enables the worshipers to track the characters of the bible as they move around. Fair bits of it now missing, as it was done in the Byzantine period some 1600 years ago, but what was still there was impressive.

A wander around the town to view the local craft specialties - glass mosaics and Jordanian Barbie Dolls, then a lovely authentic Jordanian lunch of tandoori chicken and french fries in one of the coffee shops. Stopped at the top of one of the passes to view the 'Jordanian Grand Canyon' which was smaller, of course, but still very impressive. After that, our timing went to pieces. A couple of bathroom stops were required, and we arrived at Karak Castle quite late, and it was getting very cold. Ayman almost ran us around the castle which was a bit of a shame. The scale and size of the place was quite amazing, and it was built on the top of a rather sheer cliff, so that the owner controlled the valley below, and extracted taxes from all the caravans passing along the Silk Route to Europe. Later on, it was a major crusader base as the crusaders went to free Jerusalem from the muslims. Built to be impregnable, and it pretty much was. The whole muslim army under their best leader, Saladin, couldn't breach it, and in the end it took them years to eventually take it by drying up all the water sources and forcing the inhabitants to surrender.

By now it was cold, dark, foggy and raining, which made for a fairly hairy drive down the Desert Highway to Wadi Musa, the town on the outskirts of Petra. The evening's highlight was meant to be a candlelight walk into Petra, and 13 people in the group indicated that they wanted to do it. By the time we had left Karak Castle and it was cold and dark, the number had dwindled to 9, and upon arriving in Wadi Musa in the rain and fog it was down to 5. By the time we had unloaded the bus in the pouring rain only 2 were still keen, and basically Ayman told them to forget it. Just as well, as it rained solidly most of the evening, and we found out the next morning that the bedouin had sold tickets to all the tourists, closed the ticket office, started the walk, then abandoned the walk. Who thought that we'd be sitting in a hotel in the middle of the desert, rugged up with coats and scarves, and the heater going flat out.

The Oscar Hotel wasn't one of the best on our trip. Expensive rates, paid wi-fi, and diffident service. We must be back in a tourist area. Tomorrow's a 5am rise to beat the hordes into Petra.