Petra – Jordan Journey, Day 6

December 30, 2014 Sharon Leave a comment

The ancient city of Petra, carved into the sandstone mountains of southwest Jordan starting in the 4th century BC, is listed on nearly every website touting “The Top 25 Places You Should See Before You Die!”

Many travel bloggers say you can see the main archaeological sites in a day or less, but Tony and I easily could have spent weeks climbing the rocks, exploring the ruins, marveling at the morphing colors from dawn to dusk, and conjuring up mental movies of Nabataean life.

The Nabataeans were known for controlling trade routes and for hydraulic engineering systems, including water conservation systems, dams and an infrastructure for delivering water to the community through pipes and channels.

The Visit Petra website offers some background:

It is not known precisely when Petra was built, but the city began to prosper as the capital of the Nabataean Empire from the 1st century BC, which grew rich through trade in frankincense, myrrh, and spices. Petra was later annexed to the Roman Empire and continued to thrive until a large earthquake in 363 AD destroyed much of the city. The earthquake, combined with changes in trade routes, eventually led to the downfall of the city which was ultimately abandoned. By the middle of the 7th century Petra appears to have been largely deserted and it was then lost to all except local Bedouin from the area.
In 1812 a Swiss explorer named Johannes Burckhardt set out to ‘rediscover’ Petra; he dressed up as an Arab and convinced his Bedouin guide to take him to the lost city. After this, Petra became increasingly known in the West as a fascinating and beautiful ancient city, and it began attracting visitors and continues to do so today.
The Nabataeans buried their dead in intricate tombs that were cut out of the mountain sides and the city also had temples, a theater, and following the Roman annexation and later the Byzantine influence, a colonnaded street and churches. In addition to the magnificent remains of the Nabataean city, human settlement and land use for over 10,000 years can be traced in Petra, where great natural, cultural, archaeological and geological features merge.

Tony and I were the first in line at the entrance gate – with only a few others behind us – when Petra opened at 6 a.m. both Sunday and Monday. We started both days with challenging hikes that took us away from the regular stream of tourists, so we experienced Petra in peace for a few hours each morning. Being together and alone in such a mystical place made our visit even more special.

With a little help from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” Petra’s Treasury continues to mesmerize the world. The Siq, a split in the rock that creates a 1.2-kilometer path to the Treasury, helps to set a mysterious tone. We power walked from the visitors center to the Siq and then slowed down to appreciate the setting. Rock walls towered above us – some as high as 80 meters, and the path twisted and turned, refusing to provide a glimpse of what lay ahead. Finally, through the dark channel, we spotted the Treasury. Deserted at dawn, it was mobbed by early afternoon with tour groups, Bedouins hawking camel rides, Nabataean “guards” posing for photos, and other circus-like chaos.

The Treasury got its name because Bedouins thought the carved urn on top contained riches, but the Treasury’s real purpose is disputed. Some archaeologists think it was a temple; others believe it was used to store important documents. Unlike the sprawling and magical interior of the Indiana Jones movie, the Treasury comprises only three small chambers.

On our first visit, we headed straight for the Ad-Deir Monastery. Although many other interesting monuments and ruins lined the path, we tried not to dawdle. I had been warned about the crowds, and I wanted to hike in peace. We agreed to visit the rest of the sites later. The tortuous trail up the mountain included about 800 steps cut into the rock. At the top, we rounded a corner and saw another hill a short distance away. We figured that was our final destination. Stepping down a few stone steps, I looked to my right and realized we were there. The people on the hill were just enjoying the view!

The monastery wasn’t really a monastery. It was most likely a 1st-century temple and may have been repurposed by later Christians, as evidenced by small crosses etched inside. The facade is huge, bigger but less fancy than the Treasury. That tiny dot in the doorway is Tony.

We climbed up the aforementioned hill to see the view, and then took a break at the tea stand opposite the monastery to eat our breakfast picnic.

On the way down…

Back on Petra’s main drag, we tromped around the Great Temple. Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island) heads up the international excavation project of the temple and has documented their work, as well as lots of great history, on their website: Petra – The Great Temple Excavation.
The temple is the largest freestanding structure in Petra, but there were no physical signs of its existence before Brown began its excavation in 1993.

AES 10th graders: This word will be on your test over Oedipus. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

We also explored the Royal Tombs, which were carved to house the tombs of Nabataean dignitaries. Despite the obvious erosion, I found this strip of facades even more impressive than the iconic Treasury.

Later that evening, we walked to Petra Kitchen for a “cuisine class.” I forgot my camera – doh! I was hoping for an intimate experience of culinary stories and traditions, but there were about 20 people and the fast-paced class aimed to introduce us to many different local dishes. We chopped tomatoes, garlic, chilis, parsley, onions, and roasted eggplant. I kneaded some dough for a few seconds and stirred a pot of lentil soup, but otherwise the cooks did all the work. (Don’t get me wrong. The cooks were informative and helpful, and we even saw them the next morning in the Movenpick Hotel restaurant, so they clearly know their stuff!) Mostly, it was an evening to meet people and eat delicious Jordanian dishes. We “made” and devoured lentil soup, babaganoush, fatoosh salad, tahina salad, tabbouleh, cucumber and yogurt salad, galayat bandura (a hot tomato-y dip or spread), sambousek (small pastries with cheese or thyme toppings), and magluba (a one-dish meal of rice, chicken and vegetables that means “upside down” because you invert the pot onto the serving dish). We chatted with people from the Netherlands, Russia, Australia, and … Michigan (but they live in Singapore). Fun!

On the Road

Getting to Petra – Jordan Journey, Day 5

December 29, 2014 Sharon 2 Comments

Feynan Ecolodge hires local Bedouins to transport guests to and from the reception center. For our departure, I rode in the back of a rattletrap pick-up, nearly popping out every time we hit a rut in the dirt road. (Decades ago, a similar ride resulted in a broken collarbone.) I tried to snap some farewell photos of the hillsides coming to life in the morning light, but it took most of my strength and balance to stay in the truck. Little did I know this wouldn’t be the most dangerous drive of the day.

Rather than drive from Amman to take us the relatively short distance to Petra, George had contracted with a local driver. When we arrived at the reception area, Ali introduced himself and gestured toward another pick-up. This time, I sat in the back seat; Tony sat up front. Ali’s limited English meant our questions went unanswered, and we could only assume he was the driver sent by George.
“How much minute to Petra?” I asked, using my best ESL.
“One o’clock and 30,” he answered.
Hmmm… did he mean one and a half hours? Or did he mean we would arrive at 1:30? No way to know.

George had told us that the driver would take a beautiful road to Petra through Wadi Namla. “It is bumpy road, but very beautiful,” he had said. So we weren’t too surprised when Ali veered off the paved highway. However, we soon reached a dead end at the base of the mountain, where a sign read, “Danger! Road Closed!” Ali calmly maneuvered around the sign and onto a rocky winding path without a word. Tony and I made nervous eye contact but didn’t speak. At one point, Ali steered off the “road” and onto a clearing of rubble. Trying to circumvent a huge rock, he gunned the engine, but the tires simply spun loudly, shooting rocks and gravel like machine gun fire. After getting out for a quick survey of the situation, he tried a different tack and safely passed the rock. We rocked and bumped and skidded for awhile before joining back up with the main dirt road.

Later, Tony and I laughed about that moment. We both had the same sudden fear: Ali was NOT the driver hired by George but rather some crazy terrorist who was taking us out to the middle of nowhere to hold us for ransom. Funny in retrospect. Not so much at the time.

Anyway, the rest of the trip was ridiculously scary with Ali driving precariously close to the mountain’s edge and often whipping around bends at speeds that would send us flying off the hillside if suddenly faced with oncoming traffic. Yes, the views were spectacular, but we felt too anxious to stop for photos. As we zig-zagged down the backside of the mountain and had nearly reached asphalt, a small rental car pulled up alongside us. A young American guy rolled down his window and asked Ali, “Can I make it in this car?”
Tony and I both yelled, “No way! Don’t do it!”
Ali said, “This car no good. No good.”
The guy laughed and said, “Even if it’s not my car?”
Tony leaned over Ali and told the guy, “It’s not that you’ll destroy the car, which you will, but the car literally won’t be able to get you to the other side.”
“Oh well, there’s another road, so it’s no big deal,” said the guy. “We’ll turn around.” Whew!

Eventually we reached Little Petra (Siq al-Barid). Because I had done woefully little research on this site and Ali couldn’t fill in the blanks, Tony and I didn’t know what we were seeing. We climbed around on some of the rocks, read a couple of the interpretive signs and told Ali we were ready to go.

This ceiling features a painting from the 1st century AD in a space called The Painted Biclinium. The little cave room has benches carved along two of its walls. (I now know “biclinium” is the Latin word for a dining couch for two people.) Imagine painting your dining room ceiling with a fancy design to be discovered by archaeologists 2,000 years later!

Ali delivered us to our hotel in Petra in time for lunch and kindly waited while we checked in. We thanked him profusely for getting us there alive, but he just laughed, waved and drove off.

On the Road

Serenity Now! Feynan Ecolodge – Jordan Journey, Days 3 & 4

December 28, 2014 Sharon Leave a comment

Christmas Eve
George dropped us off for two nights at the Feynan Ecolodge reception building, about 15 minutes from the lodge (on a road requiring 4-wheel drive). After a short briefing by a young Bedouin man named Suleiman, we were shown to our room. Simple but clean, it overlooked the hills of the Dana Biosphere Reserve. We were ready for some fresh air and serious peace and quiet.

The Feynan Ecolodge website explains:

The Wadi Feynan area was historically one of three main copper mining hubs in the world. For 30 years, the Natural Resource Authority in Jordan had set up camp in Feynan, scouting and assessing the area with the nostalgic hope that perhaps there was enough copper in those mountains to provide the country with a much needed natural resource. The results always came back the same; after 3-4 thousand years of heavy exploitation, all that remains is a lower grade of copper that would require blasting an 8 square kilometre hole to extract. It was not economically viable and would be environmentally disastrous, so the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature maintains a constant vigil to resist attempts to exploit these meagre reserves. The lodge was created by the RSCN to offer the local Bedouin communities much needed economic opportunities and provide a sustainable alternative to open cast copper mining. Throughout the 30 years of copper exploration, the Natural Resources Authority was hopeful that things were going to change for them. And they did.

Suleiman took us, along with two other couples, a short distance up the road for a sunset hike. He paused occasionally to tell us a bit about his life here. He has four brothers and three sisters, and they live in a big tent near the ecolodge. It’s their winter spot, protected from the cold winds on three sides by small hills. They moved there three months ago from their summer spot, a little further up the road, which provides shade from the blazing sun. His family keeps sheep and goats. The sheep stay in a pen, but the goats must be taken to graze and then brought back home every day. Suleiman said any member of the family can be the shepherd for the day, whoever has time to do it. The goats generally stick together, and their ears are tagged to show they belong to Suleiman’s tribe. Sometimes they mingle with other goats, but they tend to find their way back to their herd, he said. As we stood by the side of the road chatting, Suleiman said, “That’s my brother on the donkey.” The boy bounced by with a greeting, and moments later, the goats crested the small hill. They stopped and stared at us for a minute before passing by.

We continued walking, past the primary school and the mosque and paused at a rocky clearing. Suleiman gave us a couple options. He said we could walk downhill to a tree that promised nice sunset shots, or we could walk up to a hilltop for a bird’s eye view. We chose to go up. The view was gorgeous with a riverbed cutting through the rocky hills. Back at the clearing, Suleiman served us all sweetened sage tea and we chatted with the other couples.

The call to prayer rang out from the small mosque across the road. I asked Suleiman if it was a live imam or a recording. He pointed to some young boys playing soccer and said their father was the imam, who sang the call to prayer live each day. Not only five times a day either. The imam gave everyone a heads-up call to prayer about 15 minutes before the real one, and Suleiman said the morning call to prayer was a bit different than the others: it included a line about how much better it is to pray than to stay in bed. This imam clearly knows his clientele. His wife makes the bread served at the lodge, and her little soccer-playing boys are the deliverymen. That interconnectedness in the community is a deeply embedded facet of Bedouin life, Suleiman said. “We take care of each other,” he said. “If my hand hurts, everyone’s hand hurts.”

When we returned to the lodge, it was glowing. The lodge strives to use as little electricity as possible, so the whole place was lit with candles, luminaries and lanterns. We could barely see the food on the dinner buffet, but I think we ate a selection of mezzehs, some pickled vegetables, and a few hot vegetarian dishes, including a yummy something with eggplant. Dessert was a milky pudding with bits of biscuit inside.

A French family with three little girls ambushed our attempt to hang out by the fireplace, so we retired to the roof for some stargazing. Oh, I honestly think I have never seen stars like that in my life! The entire sky sparkled as though one of my second graders had spilled silver glitter on a blanket of black velvet. I couldn’t even make out the constellations, except for Orion’s Belt, because they were out-illuminating each other.

We attended the lodge’s short presentation about its ethos regarding local sustainability. Tony could barely keep his eyes open, and I also felt sleep taking over me. By 9 p.m., I had bundled up in long underwear, flannel PJs and thick wool socks and snuggled under the heavy cotton comforter. Tony’s cough kept us awake for some of the night, but we both found a few hours of rest.

A Columbian living in Denmark, a Brit living in Spain and two Americans living in India meet for coffee in a Bedouin tent…
Sitting on our small balcony early the next morning, I could see the lodge’s back deck, the gravelly dry river bed and the striated red hills that reach up to a brilliant blue sky. Suddenly, I heard crunching patter and bleats of approaching goats. About 20 of them trotted up to the lodge. Most aimed for the scrubby bushes a short distance away, but a few couldn’t resist the allure of hopping up the steps to check out the deck. Nobody was there. No food. Nothing of interest. Some wandered off. Some stuck around, climbing as high as they could up the olive tree’s lower branches to nibble on the leaves.

We had signed up to learn about Bedouin coffee after our breakfast of typical Jordanian treats: dates, pickled veggies, deliciously fresh white cheese sprinkled with poppy seeds, deep red tomatoes, cucumbers, hummus and thin flat bread.

Around 9 a.m., we joined Suleiman and two others (Sonjia, the Columbian living in Denmark, and Eddie, the Brit living in Spain) to learn the Bedouin customs related to making and drinking coffee. We walked to his family’s winter camp, but before entering the tent, Suleiman taught us some tent etiquette:
• There’s no doorbell, so you should always clear your throat to warn the family that you’re arriving.
• While waiting to enter, you should sort out the line with the eldest person entering first.
• Women shouldn’t offer their hand to the host unless he reaches out first for a handshake.

We entered and greeted Suleiman’s father and uncle, who both sat cross-legged by a small fire pit. His father shook hands with the men and gestured for us to sit on the floor pillows. Suleiman explained the importance of coffee in Bedouin culture as his father began to roast the beans on a flat pan over the fire. Not an everyday drink like tea, coffee is consumed at special events, such as parties, weddings and negotiations, he said. Suleiman passed a roasted coffee bean to each of us to eat and then poured the rest into a large brass mortar. He ground the beans noisily, clanging his pestle repeatedly as he worked. The sound is an invitation for neighbors to come over and join the family for coffee, he said. In the meantime, his father put a blue kettle of water on the fire to boil and then took over as bean grinder. He dumped the ground beans into a smaller Jordanian coffee pot with a pointy spout, dropped in some cardamom pods and then filled the pot with boiling water. He removed the blue kettle and the cooking stand, pushed aside the smoldering sticks and set the small coffee pot into the ash. He raked embers and hot ash up around the sides of the pot and let the coffee steep.

Suleiman continued sharing stories about coffee’s role in Bedouin culture. He said fathers and tribal elders often negotiate or solve serious problems over coffee. For example, he told of a car accident in which a pedestrian was killed. The pedestrian and the driver were from different tribes, and members of both tribes were angry and spoke of retribution. However, they agreed to wait one month before discussing the incident. After that period elapsed, the elders met over coffee. The son of the pedestrian was served coffee, but he set his cup down. Nothing would be settled until he took a sip. The driver’s tribe argued that the death was an accident and that the driver’s family would do anything, pay anything to make amends. Eventually, the pedestrian’s tribe accepted the apology and agreed that the driver never meant to hurt anyone. They asked only for the family to receive the car insurance settlement. The pedestrian’s son drank the coffee, and the two tribes were back on friendly terms.

We expected Suleiman’s father to pour each of us a full cup of coffee, but it doesn’t work that way. Suleiman explained there may only be two cups for 50 people, so you have to drink fast. When it’s your turn, you can get only two refills. The coffee should be so hot as “to scare your mustache,” he said. You can swirl your cup to cool it, but you should drink it and any refills right away so someone else can use your cup. If you don’t want both refills, you hold up your cup and wiggle it back and forth to signal that you’re finished. The server should always start with the oldest or most important person, or start serving to your right and move counterclockwise around the fire.

I had to wait for both Tony and Eddie to finish their coffee before a cup made it around the circle to me. Suleiman poured just a tiny amount, two sips really. It was very weak but fragrant. When we had all enjoyed the coffee, Suleiman’s mother and sister brought out tea glasses and a platter of mezzehs – tinned tuna, olives, hummus, tomatoes, French fries and the local flat bread. A neighbor showed up (and sure enough, announced his arrival before entering the tent) and sat down for tea with us.

Although I most likely will never need to use my Bedouin coffee drinking skills, I felt grateful for the glimpse into our host’s culture. Suleiman’s deep commitment to family and the Bedouin lifestyle helped to make this morning particularly special. Later, we had another opportunity to appreciate him. After dinner, Tony and I were headed to bed early when Suleiman suddenly stopped eating and said, “Wait, I want to show you something.” He took us up on the roof and used a laser pointer to identify a bunch of constellations. Then he unlocked a storage cabinet and took out the telescope to look at the craters on the moon. Such a kind gesture!

A few parting shots of Feynan.

On the Road

Trekking through the Bible – Jordan Journey, Day 2

December 27, 2014 Sharon 2 Comments

The Dead Sea region features prominently in the Bible, and today our driver, George, took us to three sites of Christian significance: Mount Nebo, where Moses saw the Promised Land before he died; Madaba, where an ancient mosaic map of the Holy Land has helped historians pinpoint biblical locations; and Bethany Beyond the Jordan, the site where Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan.

On the way to Mount Nebo, we stopped at La Storia Tourism Complex, a “museum” and factory shop. George was very enthusiastic about the museum and said he’d brought his family here a couple times. It started with strange life-sized dioramas of Bible scenes (including haggard taxidermied animals boarding Noah’s ark that looked like they may have been the original animals). After awhile, the theme morphed into traditional clothing from Jordan and surrounding countries, the three most sacred mosques in the world, Jordanian military uniforms and insignia, and a Bedouin tent depicting typical daily life. Very stream of consciousness … The rest of it was also weird but in a more meaningful way. We strolled through a re-created Jordanian village with all the traditional craftsmen, shops, service people and families doing what families do. The mannequins needed some upkeep, but still, it was enlightening. We exited the museum and stepped into the factory store, where a few sullen ladies pieced together small mosaics. The shop featured all kinds of local souvenirs, but we dashed through pretty quickly. We skipped the opportunity to contribute to the world’s largest mosaic, which I kind of regret now.

Mount Nebo
Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land. … Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. (Deuteronomy 34:1-6)

The main attraction at Mount Nebo was the view from Mount Nebo. There really wasn’t much to see other than a couple markers, a small museum and the exterior of a church that has been under renovation for more than four years. The church was built over the foundation of a Byzantine basilica, which was discovered by archaeologists in the 1930s.

The museum displayed artifacts from the original church. According to the website Sacred Destinations:

The baptistery and the mosaic can be precisely dated to August 531 thanks to a Greek inscription, which also names the three workers who created it and the bishop at the time (Elias). The Old Baptistery mosaic is in remarkably pristine condition because another one was laid over it just a few decades later in 597. The underlying mosaic remained hidden for nearly 1,400 years until it was discovered in 1976 when the one on top was removed for restoration (it now hangs on a wall).

From the top of the 820-meter-high mountain, Tony and I looked out at the valley and beyond to Israel and realized it may have been the very spot from which Moses saw the Promised Land.

I spaced off taking pictures of the actual mosaics. Geez. But this poster shows the most famous one.

Madaba
George dropped us off and we wandered through the streets of souvenir shops to reach the Church of St. George, home of the oldest known geographic floor mosaic. Based on buildings pictured and those missing in the map, historians date it to between 542 and 570 AD. An earthquake in 746 destroyed the town, and the mosaic was forgotten until its rediscovery in 1896 during construction of a new church.

According to wikipedia:

The mosaic map depicts an area from Lebanon in the north to the Nile Delta in the south, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Eastern Desert. Among other features, it depicts the Dead Sea with two fishing boats, a variety of bridges linking the banks of the Jordan, fish swimming in the river and receding from the Dead Sea; a lion (rendered nearly unrecognisable by the insertion of random tesserae during a period of iconoclasm) hunting a gazelle in the Moab desert, palm-ringed Jericho, Bethlehem and other biblical-Christian sites. The map may partially have served to facilitate pilgrims’ orientation in the Holy Land. All landscape units are labelled with explanations in Greek. A combination of folding perspective and aerial view depicts about 150 towns and villages, all of them labelled.
The largest and most detailed element of the topographic depiction is Jerusalem, at the centre of the map. The mosaic clearly shows a number of significant structures in the Old City of Jerusalem: the Damascus Gate, the Lions’ Gate, the Golden Gate, the Zion Gate, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the New Church of the Theotokos, the Tower of David and the Cardo Maximus. The recognisable depiction of the urban topography makes the mosaic a key source on Byzantine Jerusalem. Also unique are the detailed depictions of cities such as Neapolis, Askalon, Gaza, Pelusium and Charachmoba, all of them nearly detailed enough to be described as street maps.

For an exhaustive look at each part of the map, check out the website The Madaba Map.

Aside from its historical and scientific importance, it’s simply mesmerizing.

This display showed the whole map with an index, and the visitor center also had many excellent interpretive displays.

George recommended Haret Jdoudna, a local restaurant, for lunch. The food was delicious, and we enjoyed chatting with George about his family and Jordan.

Bethany Beyond the Jordan
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:13-17)

Our last stop of the day was the site where religious scholars believe John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the River Jordan. At the visitors center, we joined a small group and a guide for the short drive to a drop-off point. From there, we walked along a covered path to see several attractions.

Of the most interest to us was, of course, the site of Jesus’s baptism. It actually didn’t contain any water, as the River Jordan is not much more than a muddy creek these days, and its tributary into this small area was dried up. However, we could see the marble steps leading down into the baptismal pool, the mosaic floor of the 7th-century Church of John the Baptist, and the ruins of two other churches.

Another short walk brought us to the river itself.

Tony and I both touched the water and then sat quietly to watch the emotional responses of other visitors. Several people stepped into the shallow river, splashed water onto their heads or filled bottles to take home. One Italian lady actually said, “Mama Mia!” and then wept as she stood in the shin-deep water.

The opposite bank – just 15 feet or so away – was Jericho, and Israeli visitors were equally emotional. “What keeps us from wading across to Israel?” I asked Tony. He gestured to a shady spot, where a Jordanian soldier sat hunched and looking bored. I wandered over and tried to engage the soldier in conversation, but his English was limited. “Does anyone ever try to walk or swim to the other side?” I asked with lots of ridiculous miming. He wagged his finger at me and said, “No.” Maybe he thought I was asking permission to do so. Then I asked if I could take his photo, and I got the same reply.

Our tour ended at a gift shop, of course. This one was aptly named after the area’s most famous resident. Holy water, rosaries, icons, and a whole plethora of other Christian paraphernalia filled the shelves.

Our guide, a young archaeology student, was friendly and kind, but his English was difficult to understand, so I had to dig around online to understand what we saw.

Why do archaeologists believe this is the site of Jesus’s baptism? The website Sacred Destinations does a nice job summarizing the evidence.

The first historical mention of this site is in the writings of the anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux in 333 AD, which say Jesus was baptized five Roman miles (7400m) north of the Dead Sea, which is where Wadi Kharrar enters the Jordan River.

The pilgrim Theodosius was the first to mention a church at the Jordan River, which was built at the end of the 5th century by the Emperor Anastasius (491-518) to commemorate St John the Baptist. Built on arcades and square in shape, the church had a marble column with an iron cross marking the spot where the people then thought that Jesus had been baptized.

Various other church writers and pilgrims in the 5th through 7th centuries mentioned churches in the lower Jordan River-Bethany region commemorating the baptism of Christ.

The 7th-century pilgrim Arculf mentioned seeing the ruins of the church at this spot on the east bank, a wooden cross in the river, and steps leading into the water from the west bank. Another nearby chapel was said to have marked the spot where Jesus’ clothes were kept while he was being baptized.

In more recent times, the site was long off limits due to its position along a disputed border that was dotted with thousands of land mines. It was only in 1996, following the peace treaty of 1994 and two years of clearing the mines, that archaeologists were able to excavate Wadi Kharrar.

Using some pre-1948 studies and the early pilgrim accounts as their guide, archaeologists quickly uncovered an astonishing 21 ancient sites. These include five baptismal pools (shallow pools lined with plaster) from the Roman and Byzantine periods; a Byzantine monastery; 11 Byzantine churches (many with mosaics and Greek inscriptions); caves of monks and hermits; and lodgings for pilgrims.

These findings have led most scholars to conclude that this is the biblical Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan, where John baptized Jesus Christ. This is not certain, however, as the ruins do not date to the time of Christ and there are some early sites across the river as well. Some still believe Jesus was baptized on the west bank in Israel, but the majority opinion firmly rests with this site in Jordan.

In January 2000, on Epiphany, more than 40,000 people gathered at the Baptism Site along with church leaders from 15 world churches in a massive pilgrimage. Shortly after, the Armenian Church officially declared the site to be the location of the baptism fo Christ. And on March 20, Pope John Paul II held an outdoor Mass at the site with 25,000 worshippers in attendance.

The Baptism Site Commission website is a goldmine of information about the River Jordan and its significance in Christian history. You can watch a full documentary or a series of short videos, read heaps of testimonials, peruse maps and other original documents, and more – all in beautifully fluent English. Very impressive!

According to the website, the site was a major pilgrimage destination until around the 14th century, when power fell to the local tribes and the area was considered unsafe. The Madaba map’s discovery in 1897 renewed interest in pinpointing the location of Jesus’s baptism, but it wasn’t until Jordan and Israel signed their peace treaty in 1994 that the area was de-mined and prepared for excavation.

On the Road

Bob-bob-bobbing along – The Dead Sea – Jordan Journey, Day 1

December 24, 2014 Sharon 2 Comments

You can’t visit the Dead Sea and not go IN the Dead Sea, right? Tony and I kept asking that aloud because, frankly, we were not at all enthusiastic about getting in the water.

Every website about the Dead Sea features a litany of warnings:
Don’t shave before you swim!
Any cuts or sores will burn like hell!
The sharp rocks will cut up your feet!
If you get the water in your eyes, you will wish for death!
The salt water will destroy your swimsuit!
Flies will coat your whole body the minute you get in the water!

The best threat? You can’t sink in the Dead Sea, but you can drown if you roll face-down and can’t roll back.

Seriously, we had to talk ourselves into it.

Jetlag sent us to bed at 7:30 p.m. and woke us up at 5:30 a.m., so we lingered over breakfast, toured the resort and scoped out the sea, all before 10. Standing at the dock, we played with the resident cats and chatted with another couple who had enjoyed an early morning dip.

BTW, that’s Israel in the background.

“If we do it now, it can all be over by 10:30,” I said to Tony. We plodded to our room, changed into swimsuits and clambered back down the hill to the waterfront.

I plunged my hands into a large clay pot full of the therapeutic “black mud” and smeared the stuff on my arms and legs. A hotel worker hanging out by the water told me it was “fresh mud, new mud.”

Wearing flip-flops, I tentatively stepped off the dock onto large rocks. Rather than trying to walk out further or swim, I simply sat down. My butt didn’t go far, though, and just like that, I was floating on my back. If I filled my lungs with air, I could hold the entire length of my body on the surface or stand upright without touching the bottom and stick out of the water up to my chest. In my haste to get this over with, I hadn’t brought any props. So much for the reading-a-newspaper-in-the-Dead-Sea photo opp. After snapping a few shots of me, Tony climbed into the water, too.

Tony is neither touching the bottom nor treading water. Insane!

Much to our surprise, the sea felt fantastic, like warm baby oil. We played with our buoyancy, bobbing about and seeing how far we could submerge ourselves. The only way to move around was to lie on our backs and paddle with our arms. I carefully avoided getting the water my eyes or mouth, but Tony intentionally tasted it and said it was 75 million times saltier than he thought it would be and completely disgusting. As we played, I rubbed the black mud off my limbs. We would have stayed in the sea longer, but the air was cool and we couldn’t get far enough underwater to warm up.

We hosed off and then jumped in to the hotel’s heated swimming pool. Weirdly, I expected to float on the surface like I did in the sea. I honestly couldn’t remember what normal buoyancy felt like. When I filled my lungs with air and stood upright without touching the bottom, most of my face remained underwater. I lay on my back, as I did in the sea, and slowly began to sink.

Here are some facts about the Dead Sea I learned on this visit.
(1) It is not a sea at all but rather a saltwater lake 67 kilometers long and 18 kilometers wide, sandwiched between Jordan and Israel.
Image source: environment 360

(2) Water flowing into the Dead Sea was dramatically reduced when countries in the Middle East diverted the Jordan River for drinking water and irrigation in the 1950s. The Dead Sea’s water level drops by a meter every year.

(3) The Dead Sea’s shoreline marks the lowest spot on earth – 423 meters below sea level. (Weird that a sea could be below sea level…)

(4) Because the sea sits so low, there’s no outlet. Water can only escape by evaporation, leaving behind salt and minerals. While normal seawater is about 3.5 percent saline, the Dead Sea’s salt content is almost 10 times higher – around 33 percent. That’s why we float; the salinity makes the water denser than our bodies.

(5) The Dead Sea area is sprinkled with sites mentioned in the Bible, so the tourists include many religious pilgrims. Sodom and Gomorrah were here. John the Baptist lived in nearby caves and baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. God showed Moses the promised land from Mt. Nebo, just a short jaunt up the road.
Image source: fineartamerica

(6) Mud and minerals from the Dead Sea have attracted the sick, infirm and cosmetically obsessed since Cleopatra’s time. People flock here for spa treatments, but now you can buy products with Dead Sea mud everywhere, including amazon:

Daily Life, On the Road, Uncategorized

Why travel?

December 22, 2014 Sharon Leave a comment

“This is what it’s all about,” I thought to myself as I stared out the window of our 787-8 Dreamliner. I had never seen anything like it. At first, I thought it was sky. Hazy, pewter sky. Then I spotted a boat and realized we were buzzing the Persian Gulf. Soon, swirly barren islands created a paisley pattern in the water, and clustered buildings rose like a sandcastle city from the sea. Beyond the city, the pale desert stretched to the horizon.

My crankiness over the impending layover in Qatar immediately subsided as we approached the airport. I kept smacking Tony’s arm and pulling him away from his movie to witness the weirdness. “That is surreal,” he said, leaning over me to peer out the window at Doha. It reminded me of our trip to the Grand Canyon on our honeymoon, hushed visits to the underground cistern in Istanbul, hikes on the Great Wall of China, our first time attending a baci ceremony in Laos, or participating in the lavish wedding of our Indian landlord’s daughter in Delhi.

And, again, I thought, “This is what it’s all about.” The uncomfortable hours crammed in tiny airline seats, the jetlag, the expense, the inevitable tummy issues, the mind-boggling layers of planning, the currency conversion confusion, the sleep deprivation, the omnipresent risk of cultural faux pas, the exhaustion. However, the minute we see something for the first time, learn something fascinating, eat something we hadn’t tasted before, or meet someone with a unique story, it’s all worth it.

We chose this lifestyle for many reasons, but living abroad can be tedious. Errands that would be simple back home take longer and involve several steps -and often many missteps. The fascination of your host country can pale in the blinding frustration of daily life. (Yes, there’s an elephant blocking my parking space. That’s wacky and totally worth at least a tweet, but the fact is, I need to park my car, so now what do I do?) Sometimes I worry I’m getting lazy as a traveler. When Bangkok is your go-to city for an easy laid-back long weekend, where do you go from there?

The sight of Doha from the sky probably doesn’t impress people who have traveled in the Middle East, but for Tony and me, it was that moment as a traveler when your heart speeds up and you can’t think of words to describe what you’re feeling so you keep muttering, “Crazy.” Once we landed and discovered our connecting flight to Jordan had been delayed, my euphoria faded.

But it’s nice to get a reminder now and then of what it’s all about.

Daily Life, India

Hiking in Heels

December 9, 2014 Sharon 1 Comment

Knowing our semester break will involve some trekking, I tried to find new hiking boots here in Delhi. A visit to shoe stores at the mall proved fruitless, so I searched on amazon.in.

I was going to launch into a tirade about gender stereotyping of women in India or the subjugation of women in general, but instead, I’ll just let this screenshot speak for itself.

India, On the Road

Thanksgiving Tiger Hunt – Ranthambore National Park

December 7, 2014 Sharon 1 Comment

A scroll through last weekend’s Facebook photos revealed a cornucopia of Thanksgiving parties and reunions enjoyed by our American friends and family around the world. As for us, Thanksgiving meant an Indian buffet and Rajasthani entertainment on the lawn of our hotel in Sawai Madhopur, five hours southwest of Delhi by train. We traveled with a few other families from school, and we all felt grateful for the fresher air and relative peace.

Here’s a little history about the the park from the website Sanctuary Asia:

The Ranthambhore Fort, occupied for years by Raja Hamir, has lent its name to the Tiger Reserve. A Hindu battlement, it has seen a series of Muslim rulers try unsuccessfully to lay siege to it, including Allaudin Khilji in 1301.The army of the Moghul Emperor Akbar camped here (1558-1569) and the Akbar Namah records the menu that the generals were served when they had a meal under the famous banyan tree that visitors can still see at the base of the ramparts.
The park area itself was once the hunting preserve of the Maharajas of Jaipur and many tiger shoots took place here including an infamous visit in the early sixties when a tiger was set up to be shot by Queen Elizabeth II.The Ranthambhore Park earned Sanctuary status in 1958 and when Project Tiger was launched in 1973, it really began to receive the protection it deserved. Placed under the care of the now-famous Fateh Singh Rathore, by the 80s the park had earned itself the distinction of being one of the world’s best-known tiger forests.
The first real signs of ecological renewal were the scores of once-dry pools, streams and rivulets that began running full of water all year long. This helped native plants to re-establish themselves. A major side-benefit of Ranthambhore’s return to health was the ground water recharge service performed by the forest, which helped restock wells in surrounding villages.

For our safaris, we split into two jeeps. The Dents rode with the Rosenfields: Kristen and Jonah, and their two boys, Asa and Liam. In the other jeep: the Gregors and the Curreys. Alicia Brown skipped the first two safaris to rest her weary tummy.

Tiger hunters!

To reach the tiger park, we rolled through the city streets for a drive-by glimpse of daily life. Flaunting designs shaved into their fur or painted with dye, camels hauled carts loaded with bricks and marble slabs. Psychedelically decorated trucks – every inch adorned with colorful designs, sanskrit wishes, huge pompons and pleasantries such as “Horn Please” in elegant script – blared tinny music or parked roadside with their hoods up. Smiling faces pressed against the glass or hung out the windows of overstuffed buses with additional passengers waving from the rooftop. Where the path narrowed and traffic bottlenecked, piles of trash attracted boars, goats, cows, dogs and monkeys. Donkeys carrying baskets of dirt wove between the cars, and villagers carried on with their routines.

Out in the countryside, the scenery changed dramatically. Deforested farmland and pastures bumped up against the rugged hills of the Aravelli range, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world and the same ridge that peters out near our home in Delhi.

On our first safari, Friday morning, we spotted tiger prints in the dirt but no tigers in District 6.

We bumped through a stunning landscape turned golden by the rising sun and saw other interesting mammals, such as spotted deer, nilgai and antelope. Cresting a hill, we encountered this guy, a sambar deer. He sat calmly, staring at us and chewing nonchalantly with no clear intention to move out of the road until the driver revved the engine and rolled forward a bit. Still nonplussed, the deer slowly stood and stepped off the road into the woods.

Our guide explained two ways they track tigers in the park: footprints and warning sounds. We had seen the footprints, and soon passed a small deer running in the opposite direction of a sharp barking sound. A large gray nilgai was warning the other animals that danger lurked nearby. The nilgai stood alert at the edge of a cliff, looking down into the valley.

Occasionally it stomped a foot aggressively and startled us with its sudden barks. Eventually, a gray-and-black striped hyena scurried into view, only for a moment, and then both animals sped away in opposite direction. Afraid I’d miss it, I didn’t even raise my camera. “This is only the third time I have seen a hyena in my whole career,” the guide said. Small consolation for no tigers, but we’ll take it!
Our hyena looked just like these guys (which I found on the website Look At India.)

Other shots from the morning safari.

Safari number two, Friday afternoon in District 8, we spotted only one tiger. (I bought him from the puppet maker after the show Thursday night.)

We enjoyed the view from this mountaintop.

Otherwise, we saw some langur monkeys and a few other mammals.

Just as we were heading out of the park, Kristen leaned forward, tapped the driver on the shoulder and said, “I just saw a leopard, and I am not even kidding.” Completely calm. We backed up, and sure enough, there he was! Camouflaged in the leafy dusk, he paused momentarily before slinking away. This was the only semi-clear shot I took.

Safari number three, Saturday morning, took us to District 7, where we continued not to spot any tigers. We did, however, experience some fairly dangerous driving maneuvers. We opted to risk tiger attack and walk up this short hill rather than risk rolling off the mountain in the jeep.

At the end of our safari, we pulled up to this gate to leave the park. Unfortunately, it was locked. Our guide explained: “The man who has the key in his pocket is not here.” Oh. OK.
So we waited. After awhile, someone arrived to unlock the gate, and we headed back to the hotel.

As our two jeeps arrived at our hotel, someone shouted, “There’s a tiger on the main road!” Our drivers immediately whipped the jeeps around and sped back out. This was possibly the most dangerous 10 minutes of my life. We drove ridiculously fast with no seatbelts in an open jeep, nearly popping out altogether every time we hit a pothole or speedbump, cresting hills in the wrong lane, swerving around pedestrians and slower vehicles at breakneck speed. Although several of us thought the tiger would be sitting next to the “main road” in town (a scary proposition!), it turned out the tiger was seen on the main road inside the park. By the time we arrived, other jeeploads shared the news of his escape into the forest. It’s really no surprise that we didn’t see a tiger. One of our guides said there are only about 56 in the whole park.

The train ride home was pleasant enough for Tony and me. Upgraded to second class, we had our own tiny compartment in a tranquil car. The rest of our group – back in “steerage,” as Liv called it – crammed into a compartment with four bunks and no curtain. Everyone in their train car seemed to be talking at full volume, and an overly friendly Rajasthani man desperately wanted to be their BFF. Yikes.

Overall, I loved Ranthambore. I always relish Rajasthan’s colors and chaos, but this trip rejuvenated me like no other domestic journey in recent memory. Nature, clean air, comfy beds, fun people. All good.

The Guide Hog

Monthly Archives: December 2014

Petra – Jordan Journey, Day 6

Getting to Petra – Jordan Journey, Day 5

Serenity Now! Feynan Ecolodge – Jordan Journey, Days 3 & 4

Trekking through the Bible – Jordan Journey, Day 2

Bob-bob-bobbing along – The Dead Sea – Jordan Journey, Day 1

Why travel?

Hiking in Heels

Thanksgiving Tiger Hunt – Ranthambore National Park

Adventures in Teaching and Travel