Travelfiles

Jordan

Jordan, one of the countries in the near middle east. I visited the capital, Amman. Two of the most famous buildings in the city centre include the Roman amphitheathre and the citadel. On of my next visits I plan to visit Petra of world famous place.

Around the Country
I made a 2 day tour around the country. In these two days we did the following things. (Yes we did a lot for just 2 days)

First of all we went to Petra, the spectacular rose-stone citywhich was built in the thrid century BC by the Nabataeans who carved palaces, temples, tombs, stonerooms and stables from the rocky cliffs. From here they commanded the traderoute from Damascus to Arabia and through here the great spice, silk and slave caravans passed. In a short time the Nabateans made great advances. They mastered hydraulic engineering, iron production, copper refining, sculpture, stone carving. Archaeologists believe earthquakes, including a massive one in 555 AD forced the inhabitants to abandon the site. Right here you see a picture taken close to the entrance of the site.

This part is know as the Siq, through this incredibly narrow 1200 meter long defile you enter the site. This is not a canyon allthough it might look like that. But it is a block that has been split by tectonic forces. Imagine what kind of earthquake it would have given..

This is the end of the Siq. Right here it is extremely narrow. This point gives you the first real vision of what Petra is famous for. One of the most beuatifull buildings, the Treasury comes into view.

The treasury which is locally known as Khazneh. The legend says the treasury is named liked this because pirates hid their treasures here. The whol building is carved out of a single iron-laden sandstone rock. The interior is a lot smaller as you would expect looking at the photo. It contains one single room.

The roman-style Amphitheatre is also carved out. 8000 people can sit here

A picture made from the high place of sacrifice. Which is on top of the mountain overlooking the whole site. It was approx 45 minutes climbing to get there..

Some of the rooms in Petra have fantastic colourpatterns.

This is a picture of the Royal tombs, like most buildings in Petra the exterior is more impressive then the interior.

This is a picture of possibly the world's oldest Byzantine mosaic taken in the ruins of the Byzantine church

And this local form of transport brought us back to our cars, as we had to continue to our next stop:

Wadi Rum, before it would be completely dark.

From there on we went to Aqaba, where we bought some food to make a BBQ on this beach (picture was made the following day) before we would all sleep together in one tent, (While we all had a room in the 5 star hotel in Amman unoccupied) On this picture you can see Aqaba in the distance on the right, Eilat (Israel) just left of it and further left is Egypt. When I would be looking the other way I could see Saudi Arabia.. Lots of countryborders here.

But, we had a good time there. After quite some sleep in this tent we woke up the following day with some other things in our mind to visit.

We were on our way to the dead sea through wadi Araba. A picture of our group in the desert.

The desert, which like most desert was streching for miles. The mountains in the backgroup belong to Israel.

According to the bible the stone is Ruth, who turned into a stone pillar by looking at the holy land.

The dead sea with all the salt cristals which formed at the edges.

A bit more detail of this beautifull sight.

Off course we would also take a dive. (Well more like a float actually) in the dead sea. Including a mud bath with dead sea mud.

After our jump into the dead sea a visit to another place mentioned in the bible. Mount Nebo where Moses looked out over the Promised Land.

This monument was placed there by the franciscan fathers

Thet also excavated and protected the ruins of this 6th century church.

Which has a beautifull mosaic.

From Mount Nebo we were off to our last stop on this two day tour. The Hammamat Ma'in Hot springs. The water is heated by our planet Earth to 45 degrees centigrade. First we got into a hot pool here and we saw this beautifull big waterfall with HOT water.