Crossing the border I had the welcome sign.

When I went to Podgorica, in Montenegro, I thought it was the ugliest capital on earth. Now I think it´s Amman. Concrete over concrete, disorganized, dirty…

In Amman I’m here just one day, waiting for Dermot who has come to visit for three days. We have rented a car to do as much as we can in just these days. It turned out to be a great idea since we have enjoyed the driving a lot and have been able to do everything we wanted.

It´s been very intersting going through Syria and Jordan, they are both Arabic contries with Muslim majorities, before them I had been in some Muslim balkan countries and Turkey that were Muslim but not Arabic. All is a bit different. The most obvious is the clothing, however many dress in western clothes now. The way of thinking is different too, probably further from the west than the other Muslim countries I´ve been. Here there´s an exception, the Christians I met in Syria were very western thinking and maybe this is because the west has some meaning of Christianity or at least of non-Muslim… we´ll keep thinking about this while travelling.

“And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo” (Deuteronomy 34:1) Where Moses was supposedly shown the ‘Promised Land’ by God. Not far is the place where Jesus is supposed to have been baptised.

If I’d be there with Moses after crossing the desert for weeks and he tells me that this arid place is the promise land I think I’d beat him. What a dissapointment. In support of Moses I have to say that this area was not as arid as it is now.

A dam and reservoir to store a very scarce commodity. WATER! We are going south to Petra, but instead of driving in the boring, and fast, desert highway we are going by the kings highway.

Relaxing in the Mountain Side Café. This bedouin had taken sofas up to the top of a hill where the kings highway goes, you have shade and all you want to drink with a stunning view. He had a funny Texan accent as he used to work for the Jordan army and stayed there for nine months.

The loo and its view amazed me!!!!!

We visited a crusader’s castle It had four floors! It could be a topic for a separated post to talk about what was the real mission of the crusades. Under the religious banner some historians add economical and imperialism reasons. The photo is pretty bad but I wanted to tell this little bit with some context.

Salt line on the rocks from the Dead Sea.

Floating in the Dead Sea. Don’t swallow it or get the salt in your eyes… it hurts a lot. The taste is alot worse than what I thought.

Canyon in the shade

We drove over 700 kilometers in this tiny country.

Sunset over the Dead Sea with Israel in the background. Pay attention to the colour of the water, doesn´t it look kind of metal? When you look at the water you can see how it has “something” floating, it´s not homogeneous.

No green to be seen anywhere. Brown and harsh landscape.

About to enter into Petra, but we´ll tell you about this long and hot day in the next post.

Petra´s pictures are coming on quite well. We are looking foward to post them.

Dermot & Fernando