Al Beidha (Little Petra) -> Jordan Mtns -> Dead Sea -> King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge

September 22, 1011

Early morning we checked out of Amra Palace Hotel, with box lunches, and got on the road. What a delightful stop, early on, to walk and explore part of the small canyon of Little Petra (Al Beida), recognizing structures and caves in the sandstone, as we had seen in Old Petra. We enjoyed climbing up and into caves, and were intrigued with a ceiling mosaic (protected by a fence) that included many details upon close, careful inspection. We managed to get some decent photos, but here’s one that I downloaded from the nabataea.net site.*

Ceiling mosaic *

George entering the siq into the canyon

George, Jafar, Pat, Jeanne

Ceiling mosaic (photo by Steve)

Ceiling mosaic (photo by Steve)

George, Jafar, Bev (photo by Steve!)

Returning through the siq of Al Beidha

Heading toward the bus

Heading toward the bus

View from the bus: crops flourishing in desert

 We continued our bus journey toward the King Hussein Border crossing, an exciting drive that Ali (bus driver) was willing to do (persuaded by Jafar). The road is narrow and steep as it winds down from the high Jordanian mountains that are higher than those on the west bank of the Jordan River and Dead Sea, arriving at the Dead Sea Highway in Jordan. The exact route we took, I'm not at all sure. Pictures tell the story:

Fresh water from the highlands flows through a narrow canyon at Wadi Mujib.

Along the way we learned much about the Dead Sea: 33.7% salinity (compared with 2% and 3% for the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans), an inland sea in Africa (where?) has the highest percent, the Dead Sea is the second highest, and the Great Salt Lake in Utah is the third highest. Also: Beaches near the dam pictured above are very popular, as are others along this large Dead Sea. The biggest commerce, however, is with mining minerals, etc. from the water for producing fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, etc. We will learn more from the Israel perspective during the next stage of our OAT adventures, starting later today when we meet our Israeli guide Nurit after crossing the border and checkpoints from Jordan into Israel at the King Hussein Bridge (known to Israelis as the Allenby Bridge).

The crossing went reasonably well although we were all anxious, so much so that we forgot to eat our boxed lunches! Jafar took us as far as he could to the passport checks to get our Jordanian departure stamps. Then we went through about three Israeli checks including individual security screening. Finally, we saw the baggage claim area and Nurit waving on the other side! (Steve and I had seen her photo on Facebook. Finally, on a different and larger bus (because we'll soon have a group of twelve), with driver Amitai working with Nurit.