Madaba

• Posted by: Geo Kearley
• Comments: 2

We spent yesterday afternoon floating in the Dead Sea. It was amazing – you are so buoyant that it’s difficult to remain upright. You keep rolling over on to your back or your belly, and you can literally lay there with your arms and legs sticking straight up in the air and not sink. You feel like a Fisher Price Weeble. The water is a deep green colour, and the majority of the coastline is crusted in salt crystals. The great thing about floating in the Dead Sea, is that even though you can’t even see your feet because the water is so green, there’s none of that feeling of intrepidation you get in a lake at home – you know that “something is going to come up from the deeps and drag me down” feeling, because there’s no plant or animal life in the super-salinated water.

Of course you must participate in the obligatory mud bath – essentially smearing black mud all over your body that two guys dig out of a hole on the waterfront just beyond the boundaries of the fenced in section of beach. It looks like they’re diging sludge out of a sewer, and we’re paying 3 JD to slap it all over ourselves in the name of youthful good looks. Wow! does it ever work – you would hardly recognize me now… Ha! Ha! Ha!

Beside spending yesterday floating, we did a whirlwind tour of several significant Biblical and world historic sites of great significance ( I’m a little ashamed to admit that although it was fascinating to go to these sites, nothing is as much fun as floating in the Dead Sea). We went to Karak Fortress, of Crusader and trade route fame. It was also a Muslim and Christian stronghold for centuries (not at the same time). We went to Mount Nebo, where Moses went as an old man to see the Promised Land from it’s heights before he died. It was pretty overwhelming to stand on top of Mount Nebo, and see the same land (if not landscape) that Moses did so many centuries ago – you could see the Dead Sea (the lowest point on earth), Jerusalem, what’s left of the Jerhico River… Apparently it has been “proven” that Moses’s bones are somewhere on the mountain top, they just have not found them yet (I can see the contradiction in logic here – I’m just telling you what I’ve been told…)

Today we’re in Madaba, and we’ve been to St. George’s church, where the mosaic of the “Holy Land” – ie: Jerusalem is to be found on the church floor, along with several other beautiful, but more recent mosaics of several Biblical scenes (predictably – the last supper, Jesus on a donkey, etc…) The mosaic in St. George’s is significant because it survived earthquakes and various religious extremist attempts to destroy anything Christian over the past several centuries, and it has provided scholars with an indication of the location of the ruins of several lost monasteries and churches from Biblical times. There’s also one of the world’s few mosaic schools here, and we got to visit some of the classrooms where students and teachers were working on restoring ancient mosaics, reproducing some famous mosaics, as well as creating a few designs of their own. It was impressive to see how mosaics are made – it’s sort of like pointillism with rocks and stained glass cutters. Okay – that probably doesn’t make any sense, but that’s all I’ve got for you…

I’ve got to say the Jordanian people are very friendly and helpful. It’s more expensive here than in Egypt, and there’s very little bargaining, but we can wait until we get to Aleppo and Istanbul to pick up souvenirs.

It’s still hot as hell here. Tomorrow we’re off to Damascus. As usual, we miss our families, friends and doggies. Don’t be afraid to leave us a comment on the blog… we love hearing from everyone. Kylie, please let us know how the dogs are doing.

Noel & George

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Date posted :	Jul 20, 2008
Last modified :	Dec 18, 2008
Categories :	Jordan, Middle East
Tags :	Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Madaba, Mount Nebo