Category — Jordan

We flew from Cairo back to Amman and were met at the airport by a driver from the hotel we had pre-booked.  So easy, it was wonderful!  The hotel was outside of Amman at a place called Madaba which is near the Dead Sea. 

We really enjoyed the small town atmosphere of Madaba, with its yummy Arabic bakeries and shops selling Dead Sea mud and skin care.   We had a divine lamb kebab on our first night – unfortunately though not cheap.  Jordan’s currency is very strong to the Aussie dollar and everything here is crazy expensive – compared to Egypt anyway.

We were told over and over that because there was 6 of us that we couldn’t go anywhere in a normal taxi and that we would have to book a large car and driver, with the accompanying large price.  We decided to go out into the street and hail a taxi until we got one who would go where we wanted to go for a fair price with all of us in the car. 

No problem it turned out.  Off we drove to Mt Nebo from where Moses looked out across the Jordan Valley to Israel, the promised land.  It’s absolutely magnificent country around here.

Our next stop was Bethany – the site of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist.  Unfortunately, the information we had was old and the kids were not excited about the 3km walk to the site on what was a very hot day, while Paul was not excited about the $60 entry fee!    We weren’t sure what would be at the end of the walk so we decided to pass and head for the Dead Sea. [Read more →]