Now we are 16–8 of us left this morning to return to the US —the sixteen of us are heading to Jordan. And I am weeping again, saying goodbye to this beautiful, complicated country. I wonder if I will ever return… We’ll cross into Jordan at the Allenby/King Hussein bridge. We’ve passed the northern part of the Dead Sea and glimpsed Jericho…now we are at the crossing…and Fadi is making sure that our visas are in order. We’ll leave this dear bus that has been home for 10 days and move to a different bus and a new guide, George.
Later, at the border crossing—there have been two stops. . At the first stop, we left our old bus and Fadi. We transferred our luggage to a new bus—smaller, and not as nice as the one we had in Israel, and we got our exit paperwork.
Sam
Our guide was Sam, not George…(that should have been our first clue that things were not as they should be…) Then we got to the second stop, where we had to give up our passports… this was supposed to take about 15 minutes.
And then George appeared, and we learned that we had gotten on the wrong bus! With the wrong driver! So our bus brought the other group, and we switched luggage and buses.
The bus we switched to is much nicer than the first one…the passports were returned and we finally went on our way…
Our first stop was Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John baptized Jesus. This is a lovely place—very natural—maybe like it was 2000 years ago… near where we left the bus, there was a natural spring that fed a small stream that we followed to the archaeological sites that early Christians had built in Roman and Byzantine times. More information here: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1446/
Down near the river, there was the Greek Orthodox Church of John the Baptist, built quite recently with lovely frescos. When we walked down to the river, we looked across the river and saw the place where many of us had renewed our baptismal promises just a few days ago. It seemed pretty commercial in comparison…
As we drove toward our lunch spot, we passed a marker that referred to the prophet Elijah—he was born in that area, and, according to the Bible, ascended to heaven on a fiery chariot on Mt. Nebo— not far away. Because of the snafu with the buses, we were running quite late, so didn’t stop.
We got to Madaba in time for a late lunch—we ate at Haret Djoudna. It was a truly wonderful meal—delicious salad items, followed by a choice of lamb and potato slice with a yummy sauce or roast chicken with a slice of fried potato. The food was excellent, but the atmosphere was even better!
St. George at St. George's Church
After lunch, we went to St. George Greek Orthodox Church, the site of the famous mosaic of the Holy Land—only a third of it was left, but it’s pretty remarkable anyway—more information here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/madaba-mosaic-map
I took a video that captures a sense of the map, plus some chanting in the background: https://youtu.be/os-ciReAEXo
In addition to the marvelous map, there are remarkable, large mosaic pictures throughout the church depicting events in the life of Christ—and several images of St. George slaying the dragon. I could have stayed here for a long time…but we needed to get on the road to Petrait was a 3 hour trip across the desert. I have a photo of the sunset to share…
We are in Petra now, at a lovely hotel very close to the entrance of the site. I’ll be doing some serious hiking—still pondering whether to attempt the 900 steps up to a monastery at the end of the day… I’ll try to get a good sleep,tonight!
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