Madaba, Mt Nebo and arriving in Petra

IMG_8745After a long and healthy night in Jerusalem Hotel we woke up ready for the wedding tour. The breakfast buffet had more western alternatives that I took just to be sure that my stomach would behave. After greeting some of the other guests we got on the bus.

IMG_8733The very first stop was at a supermarket to stock up cookies and chips and such, I was very pleased to find that my old love from US Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo was to be found, a cooled Star Bucks vanilla frappuccino. Here flanked by another addiction at the time, Skittles. I really should find a shop that has these in Gothenburg. A six pack of Mountain Dew would also fill out the empty space in my fridge quite well.

The first real stop was Madaba, famous for its mosaic and especially a 25×5 meters map over the surrounding countries. It was quite detailed and impressive for being done in the 6th century. A few “Yalla Yalla” later and we were off to the next stop, Mount Nebo.

IMG_8748Mount Nebo is supposed to be where Moses is buried and early christians had built a church to revere the site in late 4th century. The site has a really nice panorama over “the holy land” and one should be able to see Jerusalem and Jericho from here but it was hard when we were there.

Next stop was Petra, or to be precise Crown Plaza in Petra. A very nice Hotel with a very nice buffet. Unfortunately we were on a schedule if we wanted to see Petra by night so in the middle of a interesting conversation with another guest we had to leave. Petra by night was fair enough, but I took Mirsada’s word that it would be more impressive in daylight, despite the lack of live bedouin music performances. Back to the nice hotel for some 6 hours sleep before checking out tomorrow morning.