Amman & Petra

These past two days have been extremely long and packed with activities, which has been great and exhausting.

We started the day yesterday in Amman and did a tour of the city for the first half. We went around and saw the various ruins that are throughout the city, including an old Greek temple, a massive Roman theater, and a church from the 6th century BC which has a mosaic map on the floor of all the holy places in the Middle East. The crazy thing is that it is actually completely accurate with the distances and layout of everything, comparable to the accuracy of a satellite picture. We then continued on to a workshop where they currently make mosaic pieces where they showed us the tedious process which is used to hand make a variety of things.

The women working on a mosaic picture.

We ended our time in Amman at Mt. Nebo, where Moses was shown the promised land. It was a pretty fantastic view, and luckily it was a pretty clear day, so we were able to see Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan River. We couldn't quite see all the way to Jerusalem, which apparently can be seen on the clearest days.

The view at the top of Mt. Nebo.

After Amman we drove in the bus for three hours to Petra. We had dinner at our hotel, then went and did Petra at night. They had the whole walkway down to the famous Treasury which is carved into the mountain lit up with candles. It was pretty incredible walking down in the night and I felt like it really gave you a better idea of how it was way back in the day when it was a busy trade route. Once at the bottom we sat and listened to traditional Bedouin music in the dark.

This morning we headed into the canyon at about 8:30 to see the Treasury during the day. We then continued on past it to go farther into the canyon and see the whole city that was set up in the mountains. It was pretty incredible, really it's almost impossible to explain the vastness of this place and pictures don't do it any justice at all.

On the way down to the Treasury.

The Treasury, as seen in Indiana Jones.

Only some of the countless tombs which are carved into the mountains with some Bedouin locals.

Throughout the day we hiked about 10 miles and rode donkeys, camels, and horses, all of which I loved. The donkeys were hilarious and how we didn't fall off the mountain cliffs I don't know. While riding the camels everyone was on pairs of camels which were connected to each other. I was on a camel which was connected to one of the guides, though, so he had us racing up through the canyon leaving the group way behind. It was pretty fun, though I did devise an escape route for jumping off the camel if it seemed like he was going to start taking me the wrong way. Don't worry, I swear it's totally safe here. On the horses they usually have a guide walking you up the mountain, but they let me go on my own so I was racing one of the guides, galloping up to the top. It was a pretty great end to the day.

Part of our group on the donkeys.

We took the donkeys to the top to see this Monastery which is actually three times larger than the more famous Treasury.

A good group shot at the top. The man and woman on the right are the ones who put this trip together, Jim and Carol Gee, they are incredible and I love to listen to Jim just talk on and on, he seems to know everything about these places.

This is a Bedouin girl who Jim and Carol have known since she was five and they see her every time they come. She is extremely smart and really funny, she loves to follow the group around throughout the day.

The horse I rode out of the canyon at the end of the day.

We've been extremely lucky with the weather here. Apparently the last two weeks have been miserably hot with no breeze at all, but we've had great temperatures, maybe in the high 80's, if even that, with nice breezes always. Tomorrow we're waking up super early to go hiking all over from 6-11:30am. Our guide Jim is going to take us to the dig he's been working on this past month and show us all the things they've found. Honestly, I had no idea this is what I was signing up for, but I'm totally thrilled with it all and loving it, though I am exhausted. It's truly amazing being in all of these places and thinking of all of the things that have happened around here. Tonight is our last night in Petra, then tomorrow night we're staying in the middle of the desert at a Bedouin camp, so I'm not sure I'll be able to update for a few days.