20th & 21st Dead Sea, Mount Nebo, Madaba, Jerash & Amman

Departing Petra we headed off down the Kings Highway, yet another sunny day. Our Jordanian guide was amusing pointing out the obvious - Bedouin tents, housing, farming, Japanese camels (cars), and that they have 3 types of coffee pots, large, medium and small. He basically just kept on talking until our tour leader asked him to stop as one of our travel companions were about to put in ear plugs.

Our first stop was the ruins of Karak Castle , a crusader castle where battles between the Crusader's and Muslim armies happened in the 12th century. Our guide painfully took us through the castle explaining which sections were used for what purposes and also pointing out where Roman and Nabataean stones (like circular roman columns) had been used in the construction of the castle.

We then drove down the very steep road to the lowest point on earth, the dead sea, where we stopped at Amman beach and had a huge buffet lunch before our float in the sea.

  What an amazing experience there was nothing we could do to not float. We had to be careful not to get the water in our mouths of eyes as the water is 10 times more salty than the normal sea. Catriona also had a mud bath along with Kathy, Susan and Jill, who ended up looking like the creatures from the black lagoon.

We then drove up to Mount Nebo, where Moses saw the promised land. We should have been able to see Jerusalem but it was very hazy and visibility was limited. In the afternoon we made our destination of Madaba, a historical town famous for its Byzantine era mosaics.  We had a walking tour of the town and had dinner with the group followed by ice cream at a local ice cream and cake shop. Mmmm delicious.

21st Today we had a free day and everyone except Kathy and Tony who were not well headed off to see the Roman/Byzantine ruins of Jerash. We had 2 hours to walk around the site, seeing the colonnaded street where you could see the marks left in the paving from the chariots

 

The North theatre is in very good condition

We also managed to see some of the chariot race before heading off to Amman to grab some lunch and view the Amman Citadel, more ruins and a museum that houses some of the dead sea scrolls.   We arrived back in Madaba with enough time to visit St Georges church. The church was built over the site of an old Byzantine church with what remains of a mosaic containing the oldest map of Palestine in existence. It contains all the major religious sites from Egypt to Palestine and is captioned in Greek.