Day Eight

May 22, 2007

Today was a long day of bus travel, from the northern Jordanian town, and capital city, of Amman, through the Jordan River Valley and across the desert to Petra Jordan. We will be visiting the ancient city of Petra tomorrow. Along the way today we stopped at the city of Madaba, a town mentioned several times in the Old Testament. Madaba contains a 19th-century Greek Orthodox church that was built around the remains of a 6th-century church. Among the remains of the earlier church is a mosaic floor that provides one of the earliest maps of the Bible lands. The craftsmanship is beautiful.
Our second stop was at Mount Nebo (also called Pisgah) where Moses looked over the Dead Sea and the Jordan River seeing for the first time the promised land. From the top of that mountain, we could see the same things, although our view was a little misty; in the distance we could barely see Jericho. What is amazing is the incredibly mountainous terrain from our site and the thought that the children of Israel crossed that area as a group.
Going south of the Dead Sea, we went into the land of Moab, where the Moabites live. There we visited the town of Kerak, the location of the crusader-built castle, now called Castle Kerak. The castle was built by French crusaders in the early 12th century, only to be taken over by the Muslims some 50 years later. Saladin led a Muslim army against the castle finally because the crusaders continually raided Muslim caravans passing through this important trade route. As the story is told, the last caravan to be attacked contained Saladin’s niece, prompting him to finally do something about the crusader influence in the area.
Tomorrow we will be hiking 4 miles (mostly uphill) through the ancient city of Petra, the site of filming for the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” movie. Some of the scenes will be familiar.

Castle Kerak on the left
Floor mosaic in Madaba
Moses' view into the promised land
Overlooking the Transjordan Rift