Feb 04 2009
Travels in Jordan
One of the most interesting tours we did was to the Cave of the Seven Sleepers: Cave of the Seven Sleepers. The cave is mentioned in the verse of Al Kahf in the Al Quran. It is the story of seven young men during Roman times pre-Byzantine who escaped persecution and found refuge in a cave. They slept in the cave and when they finally woke up they had no idea that they had actually slept for 300 years. The young men thought they had only slept for a few hours. After their story was widely known that the ’sleepers’ had died. Centuries later, during the time of Prophet Muhammad SAW, the Jews of Medina asked him to tell the story of the ’sleepers’ knowing that none of the Arabs knew about it, however the Angel Gabriel revealed the story to Prophet Muhammad through the verse, Al Kahf. It was a really interesting site.
We then drove south to the city of Madaba which is about 40 km from Amman for a couple of days. From there we visited Mount Nebo, which is a biblical site where Moses died after seeing the promise land. . The summit of this site has spectacular views over the Dead Sea to the West Bank and Jerusalem. You can also see the springs where Moses struck the ground to bring water. Also located in these extensive ruins is a small church which is home to some beautifully preserved sixth century mosaics which are still being uncovered today.
Madaba city has a long tradition for mosaics. The major aspect of the city is that underneath almost every house lies a fine Byzantine mosaic. Many of these mosaics have been excavated and are shown on display in the town’s museum, but it is said that many more lie hidden and are waiting to be discovered. The finest mosaic that was found is still in its original place on the floor of the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George. This huge preserved piece of art comprises of a map of the entire region from Jordan and Palestine in the north, to Egypt in the south. Many towns and cities are depicted in picture which is complete with walls and pitched re-roofed houses, and shows fish in the Nile swimming.
Whilst on our travels we were lucky enough to experience the joys of the dead sea, which is the lowest and saltiest point on earth. The locals are fascinated and amused to see us foreigners in our swimming costumes coved in mud, in Jordan the women bath with their clothes on, so it was no wonder that the whole family that was there were muttering away in Arabic but they were more amused than anything else.
After we then went south to Karak to see a fortress which is located in a beautiful and unusual green valley. The fortress was built in 1142 by Payne Le Boutellier the lord of Montreal so that he could control the traffic coming from the north and south..The fortress has underground galleries and secret passageways and has some great views of the country.
Our next stop was Dana and we were surprised by the size of the village. The village is made up entirely of dry stone houses with around 100 inhabitants. It is situated right on the edge of the cliff and the view on the canyon below is awesome. We spent a full day trekking in this natural reserve, enjoying the bedouin campsite set up in the middle of the park, which allowed us to rest during the hottest hours of the day.
Finally the time had come to see what had brought us to Jordan in the first place: The ancient site of Petra. We found our hotel which was beautiful and blended in great with area. We were booked to stay three days in Petra which was an extremely wise choice as the site at Petra is massive
Petra is probably the most touristy site in Jordan with lots of little shop stands and street vendors selling their local goods. Petra is hidden behind rugged mountains and the rock carved city of Petra is full of mystery. The main entrance is through Siq which is a long narrow gorge which rises steeply and then suddenly opens into a natural square dominated by the most famous monument of Petra the Khasneh, whose carved facade glows in the suns rays… The city is massive and the quality of the carved facades is amazing and makes you reflect on the creativity of the Nabateans who made Petra their capital more than 2,000 years ago.
We saw the Obelisk Tomb, carved out of the cliff and Petra’s most fabled achievement, El-Khazneh (the Treasury), We also walked up to a high point where there is an
ancient Nabatean sacrificial site with an Altar cut from the rock. For those who can stand doing the climb in the scorching heat the view of Petra is well worthwhile.
If you walk past the altar the track continues and leads to the garden Tridinium (the garden temple complex). There are two free standing colonnades, which are a remnants of a shrine. If you continue on you pass dozens of wall niches, before arriving at the Roman Soldier’s Tomb, and a little further is the Triclinium.
After exploring the ancient site for a few days we arranged a trip the desert of Wadi Rum which is about an hour drive from Petra. The Wadi Rum desert was one of the most interesting sites that we visited during our time in Jordan. The is the desert that Lawrence of Arabia took refuge in and the film with Peter O’Tool was filmed there. Our guide took us to all the highlights of the site the Nabatean rock inscriptions and natural rock bridges, We visited Lawrence of Arabia’s spring and house, big canyon and nice sand dunes. Then we went and watched the sunset, There are no hotels here so we had to camp out in the desert for the night where we could lie on the sand and watch the beautiful sky and plenty of shooting stars.
We ended our time in Jordan in Aquaba which is at the southern tip of Jordan. Aquaba is a proper town. It is located by the sea but unfortunately we didn’t find the long and sandy beaches that we were expecting from a so called beach resort. The public beaches were dirty and unwelcoming. Luckily our hotel had its own private one which was small but clean and quiet. We also found a good driving spot which was about a 15 minute drive south where we were able to do a spot of diving.
After Aquaba we headed back to Amman do get our flight home. Jordan was a gentle country and a good introduction to the middle east and I am looking forward to visiting some other great countries located here.
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