We followed the King's Way from Petra to Madaba, stopping in at a Crusader castle and the Dead Sea along the way. We enjoyed feeling weightless as the Dead Sea water forced us to relentlessly float. Being able to stand up in the water when we were out of our depth felt bizarre.
In Amman, the capital of Jordan, we climbed a steep Roman ampitheatre for slightly dizzying views and explored the hilltop Citadel. In the Citadel Museum I found it interesting to see statues from Ammonite times, as it really brought the history of this people to life. From the Citadel we heard the city's mosques calling people to Friday prayers: an eerie sound that echoed around us. Once prayer had finished we saw protestors gathering to follow their usual Friday protest route. Ibrahim told us that most of the protests in Jordan are peaceful, with police handing out water to the protestors. The protests in Jordan are mainly against the government rather than the royal family - it seems that pretty much everyone is very fond of the King and likes to put his photo up in their establishment.
From Amman we drove to Jerash, the stunning ruins of a Roman town. Gates, facades, and pillars had been wonderfully preserved through being buried in sand for hundreds of years. We wandered pillared streets, checkout out underground shops and had Turkish coffee in the Temple of Diana. This was no tacky tourist coffee shop - rather a lone tea and coffee vendor with a couple of steel thermoses and his cat Artemis.
While in Jordan we've enjoyed trying delicious lamb specialities, like stuffed lamb and mansaf: a dish with hot yoghurt sauce and very tender lamb on rice. Prices in Jordan are a lot higher than in Egypt, so our 15p falafel sandwiches have been sorely missed.
Landscapes we've seen in Jordan are mostly stony desert and we've visited various supposed Biblical sites along the way. Some seem more probable than others - the pillar of salt that is said to be Lot's wife looking back means she'd have to be an enormous woman! We've seen a lot of flat-roofed houses with an unfinished floor on top, as we saw in Egypt. Jordanian parents often build pillars on the roof of their house so that their son can build his own house above theirs when he has the money.
Shopping and getting about in Jordan has been more peaceful than in Egypt, where we were continually hounded by anyone who could possibly sell us a service. We learnt to banter along and have fun with everyone, rather than trying to hide away, but even so it's good to no longer be such a target. Michael still gets told "You're a lucky man" at least once a day, which is rather nice for both of us!
Our next planned destination is Syria, so we've been keeping an eye on news reports and Foreign and Commonwealth travel warnings. A warning against 'all but essential travel' to a country means our travel insurance wouldn't cover us if we chose to head there. For the past few weeks, travel warnings for Syria have only applied to a coastal area and one border crossing with Jordan, both of which we can easily avoid. We plan to take a service taxi from Amman to Damascus, crossing the safe border. We can still follow our planned route in Syria, heading into Lebanon and up through Syria into Turkey. We only have three weeks left to visit these countries, so we're thinking of extending our trip by a few weeks so we can spend a good amount of time in each place, rather than rushing. We're looking forward to our time in Syria, as we've heard the people are extremely friendly and welcoming.
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