K guys, here it is! The official text of my experience in Jordan. I know you were all just dying. I'm going to post them backward again, and then I'll prolly go back and change them in a week.
We started this morning at Mt. Nebo (which is where Moses saw the Promised Land and had the brazen serpent and all that), after crossing the border-- which was amazingly hassle-free. They only checked our passports twice (once on the bus after we crossed, they just glanced at everybody's) and we didn't even have to take our own luggage, although we did have to wait around while they searched it all. But ya, overall much less complicated than Egypt.
Mt. Nebo was... well, the overlook was closed, because they were apparently afraid that the weight of 90 or so people would cause a mudslide. Psh. We still got to look at the view, but it was foggy in the valley from all this rain we've been having, so we couldn't see all the way to Jerusalem. We did see Jericho, tho. And the Dead Sea. And they had some pretty cool mosaics. And from where we saw the view we could look up to where the overlook was and se the brazen serpent statue that they have up there. We didn't get to see it up close, but I guess looking up the mountain at it is more authentic anyway, right?
Next we went to Madaba. In Madaba is St. George's church, and on the floor of that church is a mosaic map of Palestine, from Syria all the way to Egypt and including Jordan. It had a lot of chunks missing, but all the important stuff was there, and Jerusalem was intact. They had this big picture to mark it, with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall and everything, it was pretty sweet.
Then we made the 4 hour drive up to Petra. Actually, after Egypt, 4 hours was like nothing. It flew by. I actually slept just about the entire way. I was up too late last night. But as we were driving down into Wadi Mousa (aka Petra) there was freaking snow on the ground!!! Our guide kept saying how he's never seen it snow here, ever. I just hope it's not cold and gross tomorrow. Somehow I think that would just put a damper on the whole Petra experience. It's not snowing in Indiana Jones! Well, I guess I'll just look at it this way- how many people get to see snow in Petra, huh? It'll be a singular experience, that's for sure. (Actually, it's not snowing down here where our hotel is, but cold and gross would still way suck.)
Just before we got to the hotel we stopped at the spring that was created when Moses hit the rock to give the Israelites water. It was just chillin in this little house thing in the middle of town. Kinda neat. Still cold. Dude, I totally lost my gloves, too! I left them on the bus in Israel and now I'm sad because my hands are freezing. But I'm still excited to be here... No really, I am.
So we got to the hotel, had dinner, and then I went out wandering with Mike and Ken and some girls. I got a really neat Petra magnet, and a sand bottle that has a picture of the desert and camels in it (like, the picture is made from the sand, it's pretty dang awesome), and it says "PETRA." We watched the guy write it, he took all the sand out of the top, wrote it on the inside of the bottle in glue and then stuck some black sand to the glue and filled the rest in with yellow sand. That's not how they make the pictures, tho. It's way trippy. They have this tiny little funnel with a long spout and they pour in the color sand they need for the picture so it's just a little pile on the side of the bottle, and then they use like a pick thing to make like the details and stuff, so they push it around like that until it looks like a camel or mountains or something. It's pretty sweet. Dude, the Jordanian Dinar is like, almost 1 1/2 times stronger than the dollar. And it sucks. Not cool, after using shekels and Egyptian pounds that are like, 4 or 5 to the dollar. Well, that's all for today! Tomorrow we Indiana Jones it up, and descend into Petra!
No comments:
Post a Comment