Jordan

Our post trip in Jordan was a tale of two cities - of Amman and Petra. Amman is a big city with a mix of people. There are Jordanians, Palestinians and Saudis, just to name a few. It seemed to be more conservative than Cairo, or maybe that was just our guide. Eyad is a Bedouin man who speaks English very well and knows a lot about his country and it's history. Almost all of the women we saw wore scarves and we saw a lot of burqas.

We went to several Roman ruins, a Crusades era castle, several museums, the Dead Sea, an olive press factory, several restaurants and to a Jordanian family's home for lunch. All this in 3 days! On our way to Petra we stopped at a town named Madaba where there is a Greek Orthodox church with wonderful mosiacs. We also went to Mount Nebo where Moses looked across to the Promised Land. We visited a Grand Circle Foundation site, a mosaic training facility that helps handicapped people learn skills to support themselves. We didn't buy anything but they had beautiful things for sale!

Petra was at the end of the day long journey and our room in the hotel was a welcome sight. We stayed right outside the gates into the ruins which was very convenient. We got up early the next day and began our tour. Eyad led us from the gate to the restaurant at the end of the ruins, about 4 hours, and then we had the rest of the day to explore on our own. For those who don't know, the ruins of Petra are number 2 on the list of the new seven wonders of the world. Ancient people from the time before Christ lived in this canyon/wadi. They carved out caves to live in and wonderful structures, such as the famous treasury that was featured in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". This is another place where you truly walk around with your mouth hanging open and wonder how this ever came to be! The day after we were there, the King of Jordan came with Turkey's head of state to visit the ruins!

On our last day in Jordan, most of us took an optional morning tour into the desert of south Jordan to a place called Wadi Rum. There were magnificent rock formations, sand in all colors, stops at Bedouin camps, Bedouin tea, and finally I rode a camel! We picked up the rest of the group back at the hotel and headed to a restaurant for a lunch stop. All was well until our plane was delayed in Amman. We finally took off at 11 pm and reached our hotel in Cairo at about 12:45 am. It was a very short night (some just stayed up) and then it was back to the airport in Cairo for morning flights. Ours to Barcelona left at 10:35, a bit late; most of the others had flights to JFK at 10:10. It was sad to say goodbye to friends with whom we had spent a month, but everyone was ready to rest and slow down a bit! We are so glad that we spent the time and took the risk that is inherent in travel in the Middle East. We have learned and experienced so much and are so much better for it! I'll include a few pictures. The first is Jon with a lovely Jordanian policewoman, next is the mosaic of Mary and Jesus from the Greek Orthodox church in Madaba, then the Treasury from Petra (note the tiny people), and last but not least, me on a camel!