The road to the Dead 🌊

We departed Wadi Musa this morning in brilliant sunshine. Our first stop along the way was at the rock Moses struck to get water. The rock is still here and so is the holy water.

No matter whether people live in the city or the country, a sheikh is in charge of a group of people, so everyone has a sheikh. All sheikhs are rich. The ultimate sheikh in Jordan is the King and the King is the absolute ruler of Jordan. The photo below is the scenery??? on the first part of today’s drive.

A fixer-upper!

Shepherds.

The Persian influence in Jordan.

Our first excursion today was on the outskirts of Madaba. We had taken all morning to get here. Fortunately we are very close now to our final destination which is the Dead Sea. We visited Mount Nebo where Moses was supposed to have pointed out the promised land in about 1200 BC. On a clear day you can see Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Jericho, not to mention the Dead Sea.

The church here, dedicated to Moses, dated back to about 600 AD. They have built a modern structure over the mosaics that were on the floor of the original church. One of above pictures is what they found in 1933. The mosaics were within this structure.

We had a buffet lunch here.

And went to a mosaic store. Here we had a lesson in the important men of Jordan. From past king, to current king, to future king. First King Hussein.

King Abdullah ll - current king.

Crown Prince Hussein.

The last stop before our hotel was Saint George church - Greek Orthodox, famous fort mosaics.

Finally we were off to our hotel the Crowne Plaza Dead Sea. From Mount Nebo we dropped from 700 m above sea level to 420m below sea level. It was quite the drive with switchbacks galore.

There were numerous gypsy encampments along the way.

Finally we arrived the Crowne Plaza - the lowest point on the earth. What a spot!

The picture of us above with the room with a brown railing on it is ours. We look out on the Dead Sea and toward Jerusalem and Israel. From here we could also see the lights of Bethlehem, but most notably Jerusalem. Never thought we’d see Israel. Wow!!! Jerusalem is the wide expanse of light and Bethlehem is the light beyond the palms.

Unlike most of our other hotels where we were the only show in town, the Crowne Plaza is hopping busy. The sad byline on this is that most other guests are Indonesian on a religious pilgrimage to Israel and Israel has closed its borders to everyone. Imagine flying halfway around the world to be denied the crown jewel of your trip.