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05/24/2004: "A New Low"

As I mentioned earlier, today we were driven from Damascus to Amman, and then we drove from Amman to Petra.

We spent awhile in Madaba, which has many old mosaics from around the seventh century. The most impressive one was a map encompassing what is now Israel, Jordan, and Egypt on the floor of a Greek Orthodox church. There were two other churches that had significant mosaics that have been largely preserved or restored. In one, a guy mopped some water over a mosaic and the colors leapt out -- I wish they could find a way to keep all the colors that vibrant all the time, since most of what we saw was pretty dusty and gray.

Then, on a whim, we drove to the Dead Sea, which is 300 meters below sea level, the lowest point on land in the world. I think it is the lowest we will ever get. We walked half a km or so from the road, and ended up getting some Dead Sea Slime on our boots and my pant cuffs. It's really salty.

Then we drove as fast as we could to Petra. But the entire drive on "the King's Highway" and the other road out to the Dead Sea was geographically gorgeous. Literally, I guess -- rivers have carved out some impressive canyons which we traversed a couple of. There were very beautiful mountainscapes on all of the roads we drove on before it got dark.

In Amman I was able to use an ATM, something I think I'll be doing quite often now that I've discovered what the prices are like in Jordan. Anyway, we'll discover Petra tomorrow, and let you know what we think.