Synopsis of day: The Day of the Toilet Visits
Spiritual Sites visited: Mt Nebo, the church where the Madaba mosaic is located.
Biblical Connections: Mt. Nebo was the site where Moses farewelled the Israelites before their entry into the Promised Land with Joshua.
Highlight of the day: The beauty of the white cliffs against the pure blue sky at the canyon along the King's Highway. There was an articificial dam at the base and the whole canyon seemed to stretch for many kilometres. It was really spellbinding.
Lowlight of the day: Naj's attempt at a history lesson covering 8000 years of Near East history. I ended up putting my ipod on because his contradictions, omissions and explanations were really annoying me.
Toilet ratings: I have been drinking more water lately and it seemed to really hit me today. I visited a lot of toilets and got to experience the dark bus toilet too. Really not a day I'd like to relive in that respect. So many places seem to regard toilet paper as a non-essential.
Favourite quote/word: “Not AGAIN! I need to go to the toilet!” (though this wasn't a favourite it was certainly the most repeated)
Favourite photo:
Canyon on the Kings' Highway.
Cultural-shock moment: The stench of the hotels and restaurants because they allow smoking everywhere. It's vile.
New food consumed: Corn soup. Pretty boring but compared to most of the other food we'd had in Jordan, I thought it was great.
Favourite purchase: A mosaic of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Random act of crazy: The restaurant where we had lunch had lots of smoking, wretchedly bad toilets, blergh food and dodgy furniture. Katherine's chair crumpled as she sat on it. She fell really gracefully and then placed her knife and fork calmly on the table. Also the set up of our hotel.
What Arthur did next: Stayed behind at locations just that little bit longer, so we had the pleasure of waiting for him.
Something I want to remember: I thought the mosaic at Madaba was really interesting. It was the oldest known mosaic map, and I enjoyed Naj's identification of different features. I'd also seen the Jerusalem section quite a few times over the past few weeks, so seeing the original was pretty awesome.
As we drove out of Amman, we noticed the King Hussein Cancer Clinic was a very large place. No wonder really. The streets of Amman and the outlying villages felt much dirtier than those in Israel, with litter all around, and so many incomplete buildings. We stopped in Madaba and saw the mosaic which was in the Church of St. George and had some amazing mosaics on the walls around. I ended up spending quite a bit of time looking at them, and was really delighted to be able to identify them. One which particularly arrested my attention was of the Palm Sunday walk, because I had a new consciousness of what the locality actually looked like, and because there was clearly a depiction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was not built until the fourth century AD. Had I not been to these sites, and learned so much more about them, I doubt that I would have picked up on this anachronism, but its being there actually provides greater symbolism since it was the site of his burial, recorded at the time of his triumphal entry.
Our next locality, Mt. Nebo, was a stunning location but I think Kerri and I were more disinterested than I expected we'd be. Of course, the poignant moment there was to look out at the expanse of desert and to wonder at how it would be to spend forty years there, and how long it would take to traverse it. I've discovered that I am really entranced by the colours and shapes of the desert, though I have no desire to live there!
There were some more mosaics and I never cease to wonder at the time it must consume to create such masterpieces. Ironically enough, our very next stop was at a centre where those with disabilities are employed to create mosaics. There were some truly amazing pieces and it is just as well I am very restricted by my current wage because I would have liked to purchase some large pieces. As it was, I bought a small square as an artistic memento (Kerri got her painting in Jerusalem and I haven't seen anything within my budget before that I liked enough. I hope to find some things in Egypt too).
It was a very long drive that day and by this point I think I'd already made five toilet stops which seemed ridiculous and it really did only get worse. One respite from the drive and those stops was our panoramic lookout along the King's Highway at the canyon. I missed its name but it was truly scenic. I took some photos of thing winding path to show Levi because it looked really cool, and there were a number of visible land slides on our way down and then back up. The sky was a most electric blue colour and this was my favourite place in Jordan to date by far.
Our interminable day continued with a visit to a really nasty restaurant for lunch (and another nasty toilet). I ended up only having rice and hommous because everything else seemed vile. The breaking chair seemed to symbolise the place, but at least we got to experience a Crusader castle, Karak, immediately after. That was a rather interesting experience, perhaps because it was not connected to the course so it felt like a break. Again the colours of the stones contrasted magically with the sky and I relished the chance to photograph it. It was interesting to see how the castle had been constructed from existing materials, and to note that these places were clearly built for people no taller than myself.
The sunset was splendid but a reminder that this was a very long day. Kerri was sleeping very awkwardly on the bus seat and she has been regretting it for some time afterwards. I was quite snap happy with the iridescent pinks and purples of the sky, but still quite relieved to eventually make it to Petra.
Our hotel is the most strangely designed place I have seen in quite some time, but done so that almost every room in the place has a view of the mountains. It meant that we had to change lifts and walk quite a distance down a couple of corridors to finally make it to our own rooms. It was not nearly as nice as Amman but we watched a dubbed version of Troy (and was much better not having to endure the painful dialogue actually) while sorting through our luggage and deciding what to post home.
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