Friday 6 October

This morning we depart Amman and head south.  We pass lots of street stalls selling brightly coloured pomegranates, eggplants and tomatoes.  We have no photos of these because it seems like an intrusion, but the colours and displays are wonderful.  Enhanced by the many olive and date trees bearing fruit.

We travel down the 5000 year old Kings Highway, which is covered in what appears to be 5000 years of litter.   Our guide blames the wind.  We keep uncharacteristicaly quiet but it is evident to us that this litter is no breeze.

Amongst this barren landscape we are delighted to see the odd farm

We visit the Greek Orthodox St George’s Church which houses the oldest map of Palestine in existence – all in mosaic and done in 560AD.  I also learned that St George was a Greek – who knew?

The Dead Sea is depicted top right with a turtle in it (actually, Cherrie tells me it is people in a boat) and Jerusalem lower right in what appears to be a walled city.

From there we proceed to Mt Nebo.  Now, the Bible has never been a page turner for me and I only remember what was drummed into me in scripture lessons at school, but so much of what we are about to see almost moves me because it is so familiar.  Mt Nebo is where it is said Moses saw the Promised Land.  Where is it?

Oh, cripes there it is

I am grateful that this land was not promised to me.   If you look carefully you can see the River Jordan, in which it is said Christ was baptised.  From here, as the Christian crow flies, Jericho is 27kms, Jerusalem 46kms and Bethlehem 50kms.  We’re right amongst it folks.  Having seen the promised land, it is said Moses died. Frankly I’m not surprised. It is said he was 120 years old!  No one knows where he is buried but there is a wonderful Church on Mt Nebo which was built in 350AD in honour of Moses.  Over the years most of the church was destroyed but the wonderful mosaics have been preserved and it is now a modern chapel and a Franciscan community.  Pope John Paul II visited in 2000 so it got a good makeover for that.  It has been beautifully done.

We see what it called a rolling stone (with apologies to Mick) which is used to seal up tombs.  And, it is said, was moved from Christ’s tomb

We have an hour for lunch each day, which is hardly enough time to finish the feast before us.  Always with a delicious lemon mint drink, always with what are referred to as salads which consist of hommus, baba ganouche (unlike the one we enjoy in Australia – this with tomato, cucumber, cardamom etc as well as the eggplant), other dips, fatouche (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, toasted pita bread croutons), falafel and lots more.  Then there’s the main course, which may be lamb, rice and yoghurt or chicken and rice etc.  Far too much food goes to waste.  And waist.

We were to visit a crusader castle after lunch today but our guide informed us yesterday that there is simply not enough hours in the day to fit it in.  Having led a few crusades in our time, we are not concerned. We do however drive past Shobak Castle en route to Petra

We are now headed to Petra, which is probably our primary reason for being in Jordan.  We pass through countryside which is much the same everywhere

 

And the greening of Jordan program did not impress Cherrie

We arrive in Petra at 5pm and we commence a cooking class at Petra Kitchen an hour later.  We join five others (Harvey and Laurie from California, Yuan and Beau from Beijing and Corinne from Amsterdam) and learn to cook lentil soup, baba ganuj (Jordan way), a spicy tomato dish called galayat Bandaranaike, tahini salad, cucumber and tomato salad, rice with chicken and my personal favourite Bedouin pizza.  Something to do with all that beef mince left over from Tony.  It is a fun experience but I am so exhuausted from this holiday lark that I barely stay awake.  It’s a late night for us, nearly 10pm when we get to bed!!

Tomorrow, the lost city of Petra