Wednesday - Welcome to Jordan

on March 03, 2011 by Walt Dilg

Wednesday – Welcome to Jordan

                Crossing the Allenby Bridge from Israel to Jordan required four checkpoints and two baggage scanning processes.  In Jordan they took our passports and looked at them in some nearby facility, leaving some of us a little anxious to have our passports out of our sight, yet they returned and all was well.

                Another group has joined with us.  They are from Georgia, are United Methodists, and add 12 more travelers to our total.  Another two are independently traveling, so we are up to 36 travelers.  It didn’t take long for us to start joking and making new friends, so it seems we will merge pretty well.

                We immediately headed to Mt. Nebo.  This is where Moses died after seeing the Promised Land.  It a high mountain of the Moab chain.  On top a new church is being built on top of some older archaeological discoveries, so we did not get much of interest to examine, since that site was off limits due to construction.   Our guide Samir arranged for a sandwich lunch to be delivered to the bus as we returned to the lot at Mt. Nebo.

                Next we drove to Madaba, stopping at a mosaic workshop and saleroom in route.  Jordan’s economy was given a little boost.  Madaba is a fairly large community, over 130,000 people.  Not the sleepy town imagined.  A long walk from the bus, weaving through the town, got us to the church and the precious view of the Madaba Map. 

                Everyone seemed to be dragging a bit today – the effect of yesterday’s intense experience.  The friendly greeting at the hotel and an upcoming good meal should help get us back in full gear for tomorrow’s travel to Petra.  It is 3 hours away, so we are leaving the hotel with the sunrise to get a jump on the traffic.