Jordan - Amman to Petra

Our Explore team in Jordan. LtoR: Toby (back to us), Anna, Martin & Cheryl (with the camera), Renee, Helen, Jenny, Emma, Gwen, Lindaa, Jackie, Henry, Brian, Natalie, Bertin, Paul, Jan & Allan

The Arch of Hadrian, Jerash Roman city

Our journey to Jordan was without problems, and again, we walked off the plane and were met, before passport control, by a man with our names. He whisked us through in double quick time, without the need for a visa, and put us in a car to deliver to our hotel (Toledo Hotel, Amman). We arrived to find notices for three Explore trips, will we be with Jan and Paul?

The Colonnaded street in Jerash, one of the best preserved Greco-Roman cities, known in Roman times as Gerasa. Originally founded by Alexander the Great it was developed by the Romans after their conquest in 63BC 

Jackie at the top of the Amphitheatre

A scarily civilised start with on Sunday morning, and yes we were, along with 14 others, making a group of 18, which is big. We are on a proper coach, with WiFi, which actually works most of the time! Not conducive to chatting however. We are 4 couples, a mum and 17 and 20 year old boys, a single man, and 6 single women, one from the USA and one from Oz. It’s a big group, a short time, and lots of names, which we have just about got sorted. The tour leader, Abdullah, however appears to have made no effort, though he did tell me he thought 18 was too few, he could quite happily do 25! As a tour leader he is probably ok, he knows his history, though we have the impression he sometimes makes things up if asked questions. As a group leader we feel there is something lacking, and he’s certainly not Wael!

Abdullah, our tour leader showing his prowess by gently rocking this column. He placed a spoon in the gap, if you look carefully you can see it, but its a bit blurred as it's moving up and down

And this little fella came to have a look to see what was going on

The first day was spent in Amman, visiting the Jerash, a huge Roman town, one of the best preserved in the world, and the Citadel. We then had a quick walk through Amman to give us some options for later. Having had a big lunch (they’ve all been set price buffets, so you’ve paid, you’ve got to eat) dinner was not on the cards. We did however go for a quick amble with Jan and Paul, sampling a very strange snack Abdullah had recommended, stringy cheese with a sweet honey topping! Bizarre, but not horrible, we won’t hunt it out, but not horrible! We then had an ice cream and a pomegranate juice. Alcohol has been very hard to find, I suspect it would be hard anyway, but is much harder in Ramadan.

And here he is banging on a drum while someone plays the bagpipes. Yes, bagpipes!

At the Citadel with great views over Amman city

The second day we went to Madaba, a town with a strong Christian heritage and a lot of Byzantine mosaics, some of which have been pictured in the book Brian is reading, so he as quite excited. We then went to Mount Nebo where Moses looked over the Promised Land. After lunch a crusader stronghold at Kerak before driving to Petra, via a “shortcut” to a fabulous viewpoint we are very impressed the bus driver could do!

See this flag and pole flying high over Amman? Apparently this flagpole is in the Guinness Book Of Records as the worlds highest pole. As I took this photograph Paul was behind me and said 'that's got delete written all over it', well, you were wrong weren't you Paul 

Petra has been stunning (our hotel: Edom Hotel). We’ve had two days here, the first led by Abdullah, till lunch when most of us headed up to the monastery, and today on our own. Brian obviously wanted to do the high points, so we set off to 07.10 to go to the high place of sacrifice and the viewpoint over the treasury. Yesterday was 10 miles, today 8, before lunch and a guided outing to Little Petra. We’ve visited the museum, not gone to the hammam for massage, and met lots of lovely cats. They do seem very friendly here. Hence time for a very quick blog!

The Christian church in Madaba that was built over a huge 22m mosaic  and partly destroyed. The mosaic has since been identified as very valuable, but only bits of it survive now. Two parts of it are mentioned in the book I'm currently reading 'In the Shadow of the Sword' by Tom Holland, a very good book tracing the origins of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

This bit is showing Christian Jerusalem

On to  Mount Nebo and this, for me was one of the highlights. It's not a very clear day, but down there on the left is the Dead Sea and there's a thin green line extending rightwards from it. That's the River Jordan and marks the border between Jordan and Israel. Beyond the river is the West Bank, occupied by Israel. Jesus was said to have been baptised by John the Baptist down there on the river and it was from this spot that, according to the Old Testament, Moses came to look across to the Promised Land. Whatever your beliefs, there is no doubt that this area, and this spot have been written and talked about for two thousand years, history and religion is oozing from every crack and to be here is just fabulous. Delighted to have been here

This is the church built on top of an older church on top of the mount. Beautiful mosaics here

No time to rest, we went via a mosaic school to Kerak castle, a crusader castle built in the 11th century in surprisingly good condition

And here's that fabulous viewpoint our coach driver did some pretty fancy driving to get to

Did we mention it was windy? Very windy! 1600m above sea level and we were looking down towards the Dead Sea at 400m below sea level (the lowest point on the earths surface)

So finally, after a long day we arrived at Petra, our main sight on this trip. After a meal we were directed by Abdullah to this bar that sold alcohol - a rarity in Jordan and even more so during Ramadan. Except that we didn't bother, £9 for a pint of gassy beer we decided we weren't that bothered!

Big day the next day, our walking tour of Petra, Here's Abdullah giving us the intro

So here we are walking down the very narrow gorge, waiting for the big reveal of the iconic Treasury that we all know as Petra. Nothing could add to the excitement and anticipation more than knowing it will suddenly appear round one of the canyons turns. I'm using Abdullah's photos here as his photos are better than mine 

Here it comes, just a few steps more...

And bam, there it is, complete with all of us. Cue Indiana Jones Music! Established by the Nabateans in the 1st century BC. This monument, the best known of several hundred on this site is carved in one piece from the surrounding rock

To be honest with you, I don't know which of the several hundred photos I have at my disposal which to put on here. It is of such staggering beauty and scale that it has to been seen to be believed

We had two days here on one ticket, one day with Abdullah guiding us and a second on our own, but with a very good idea by then of what we wanted to see

Look at the colours of the rocks here. And what's going on here? Abdullah got everyone up here doing this sort of stuff

This was today, our second, free day (actually half day as we went to 'Little Petra' in the afternoon). Saw this bird, it's got a very tuneful tweet, a black beak and an orange flash to it's wing tips. Any idea Helen? Late amendment: Helen says it's a red winged starling. Thank you Helen

So the previous days walk was 10 miles and today we did an 8 miler, starting with a walk up very steep steps to the place of high sacrifice. My book tells me there used to be human sacrifices up there!

But before I do that, I forgot to put in the longest leg of yesterdays walk, right up to the Monastery, the second most regarded building in Petra. It was a long uphill walk to get here, but it was worth it

But it was necessary to walk a further 10 minutes up to get to the highest point and get this rather lovely view. The best view in the world the sign at the bottom says. They have signs like that at the start of lots of long uphill walks!

And this was then the view back down to the Monastery

Back to today and here's the place of High Sacrifice. Nice view, but the place where humans have been sacrificed

On that spot there so they say

A bit further on and you can peer over a sheer drop to the valley below and see some of those stone carvings

Look at this obelisk here near the summit. It's carved from the rock and is part of the rock. The surrounding rock has been removed to leave this

On our way down and who should we meet on their way up? Jan and Paul

So we'd gone all the way down, past some of these fabulous rock tombs and then...

We had to go all the way back up again to see the Treasury from above. 'We don't have to' Jackie said. Well that's ridiculous, of course we have to!

Nice view of the amphitheatre way below as we go higher

And after another 20 minutes or so we arrived at a precipitous edge with a fine view down to the Treasury. No fences or any safety measures, you just walk as close to the vertical drop as you feel comfortable doing. And there were lots of people creeping to edges trying to look cool while someone took a photo. So, of course, I had to be one of them!

It's a long way down! You can look at a couple of short Relive video's with a lot more photos on if you'd like to. This one is yesterdays 10 miler with Abdullah and everyone: click here And this one is today's 8 miler taking in the high points: click here

So this afternoon we went on to Little Petra and, alongside the remains of a Neolithic village. These remains here we built by man 11,000 years ago. It must be one of early man's first settlements. Imagine that, those stones were placed by humans 11,000 years ago!

And here we are entering Little Petra, which is a smaller version of  rock buildings in a canyon. It was a commercial centre to service caravans. The caravans were left outside and business could be conducted in here

They placed a lot of emphasis on water collection as it's a desert area. See the vertical channel to the left here. Water is funneled down and into underground storage areas, not a drop was wasted apparently. Very ingenious channels and pipes are used. And all this is 2000 years old

Here we are taking a breather while Abdullah explains something

We could go up some stone steps into this one. Health and Safety at it's best here!

And it was worth it as all this original plaster and paint could still be seen 

The sign said 'Best View in the World, 6 minutes walk' so we had to go. Up the stone steps in that slot at the end

Well, it wasn't thee best view, but it was quite nice

It was also a nice place to stop and have a drink. Jackie was happy as she found another one of the many very cute little cats in Petra

Well that's about it for now. The trip so far has been full on, but really very good. Petra has lived up to it's reputation fully and is so worthwhile going to see. Tomorrow we're off camping in the desert at Wadi Rum, on to Aqaba, Jordan's only coastal  port, then back up to swim in the Dead Sea before heading home on Sunday. We may or may not get another blog in before the end, if not we'll finish off back at home. We have so many lovely photos of Petra and all and we've done lots of other stuff, such as cookery demonstrations and lots of great eating out. It's been a great experience so far, but very hectic. Looking forward to going home for a rest!