We started the day with a trip to the Jordan River which actually included a walk thru the history of the region. The guide is a Jordanian Christian who is so passionate about what the area represents, he was a wealth of knowledge and presented it almost like a preacher sometimes. We saw where John the Baptist ministered and the place they think Jesus was baptized and then went to the Jordan and watched a couple from our group get baptized. It was a really amazing place made even more entertaining by a great guide.

Next was Madaba for a fabulous lunch and a trip to the Byzentine Church with a huge mosaic map of the Holy Land on the floor. Madaba is mainly Orthodox Christian, but has a bit of a different feel to it.

After Madaba we drove up to Mt Nebo where God showed Moses the Promised Land. It was a bit hazy, so we couldn’t see as much as we would have liked, but it was still breath-taking to see the Dead Sea and Jericho and the mountains of Israel.

Now’s where it gets interesting. We hopped in the buses for a 3 hour ride south to Feynan Eco-Lodge. Actually, we got out of the buses about a half an hour away and loaded up in some beat up pick-up trucks to do a bit of off-roading. The lodge has limited electricity and that is from solar power. The only power in my room was a light in the bathroom. All the other light is from candles on the wall (and my computer screen as I type this). There are candles all over the place lighting your way around. One of cool things about this lodge is that they have people from the local community make a lot of the items for them – candles, bread, candle holders and such.

After dinner, we took a walk back down the “road” and went to a Bedouin tent. Never in a thousand years would I have thought I would be sitting in the tent drinking tea and Arabic coffee learning about Bedouin culture. We all sat on mats around the edge of the tent floor with a small fire pit in the middle. Ami and his uncle (who spoke no English) showed us how they made the Arabic coffee and actually roasted the beans and pounded them into powder while we sat there. It was just an amazing experience that I have to mark down as a “did I really do that?”

Back at the lodge, most of the halls and walkways are open and there is a fantastic deck on the roof where the moon and stars are so bright. What a very different end to a great day.

Tomorrow we head to Petra – remember the big place carved in the rock in the third Indiana Jones movie? That’s where we’re going. I think we spend pretty much the whole day there wandering around and then off to the Red Sea port town of Aqaba the next day.

This post will be a bit old by the time I get somewhere with power and internet, but hopefully the pictures will tell a bit of the story.