First day in Jerusalem

After our night in Aqaba we woke up early to cross the boarder back to Israel and then drive up to Jerusalem. Of course we had to take advantage of the hotel breakfast first. Then we caught a taxi to the boarder and started to make our way across. We thought coming back to Israel would be easier since we didn't need a visa to enter Israel and we were coming from there. Everything went smoothly on the Jordan side. They even gave us our money back for our visas ($120) since we stayed in Jordan for three nights. As we were walking across to the Israel side it looked like the guard was a little suspicious of us. I saw him use his walkie talkie to call someone. Then we saw someone from the military appear with his machine gun out and his finger on the trigger. He wasn't pointing it at us at least, but he asked us to stand to the side outside of the boarder. We weren't too nervous because we didn't think we looked very threatening and we only had a backpack with a few clothes in it. Well I guess that is what they were so worried about. An interrogator came and started asking us lots of questions. Mainly, the questions were about how we could be in Jordan for three days with only a backpack and who we had talked to while we were over there. Eventually we were able to convince them that we were just tourists and we were on our way.

We drove the two and a half hours to Jerusalem, again going through the West Bank. When we got there we still had a few hours with the car so we decided to go to the Holocaust museum which was about 5 miles away from where we were staying. Driving around Jerusalem was just as dizzying as the other cities in Israel, only a lot more people. We stopped to ask directions once and were able to get a new map that led us right to it.

It was an excellent museum! The main part of it is a huge triangle spike going through the top of the mountain (they call all of their big hills there mountains. One side sticks way out and hangs over the edge. The rest of it goes into the mountain with only the top of the triangle showing. The museum was very similar to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC. They even had a lot of the exact same displays. It was interesting and informative and it definitely encouraged you to think a lot more. Rebecca and I wandered around in it silent, just reading, for a few hours. Once we got outside there were gardens and memorials that we walked through and talked about what stood out to us.

I didn't end up taking any pictures inside. I can't remember if it was allowed or not, but it didn't seem like something to take pictures of.






After the museum we dropped our car off at the car rental spot. It was just about a mile from our hotel so we made the walk there. Our hotel was really perfectly situated. It was about a mile to two miles from most of the places we wanted to go to, including the conference site, a market, and all of the old city. It was located in what seemed like a more young, trendy area of the city, with lots of shopping, restaurants, musicians, and people walking around in the evenings. The area wasn't too crowded where it was noisy though. We picked a boutique hotel through priceline. It was supposed to be a four star place and it was really nice. There were only maybe five or so units in it so it seemed really personalized and the staff were always there to help us out. At the same time, because it was so small they didn't seem to have all of the regular hotel things down like making sure the toilet paper and soap were restocked. So we had to ask for that once.

We finished our evening by finding a falafel place just a block away that we really liked. We ended up going back there for every dinner for the rest of our stay. We got their falafel, shawarma, kebabs, and schnitzel all a couple of times. All very delicious. My favorites were the falafel and schnitzel and Rebecca always loaded up on a lot of side vegetables (I think the eggplant was her favorite).

Petra

We spent a day and a half in Petra and this was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. It was an adventure getting there from Aqaba though. It is about a 2 hour drive to Petra and taxis were telling us they would take us for about $60. Instead, there were buses that would go for about $7 each, so we decided to do that instead. The bus system works differently than the American system though. In Jordan they have large vans that seat 15 to 20 people. These vans are privately run and they only leave when they are full. So we found one that was leaving to Petra and got on at about 9 am. After waiting for about 2 hours the driver approached us and said it may be a little while still, but if we wanted to pay him $7 more each he would go right then. We negotiated some and finally decided on about $3 more each. But as soon as he had his money he got on his phone and made a few calls and the van was all the sudden 3/4 of the way full. Then he drove around the block and picked up another group of people and then every seat was filled. We felt cheated, but as we looked around and saw all the poverty there we didn't mind too much.

Here is a picture of the buses/vans




The drive was right through the middle of the desert. Every once in a while we would see a small little village and wonder how it could survive with only sand surrounding it. We would also see some small houses all alone just made out of wooden pallets or other scrap material.

We got to Petra at about 1 pm. The start of it is a little museum and lots of different shops. They had a few warning signs that I thought were really funny.



The picture on the bottom right says "John should have thought about his size and the animal's welfare before taking a ride."

From the entrance it is about a 1/4 mile walk to the Siq. Before the Siq there are a few cool tombs to look at. This was all out in the sun though so we didn't spend too much time looking at these (these are from the second day at 6 am, that .











After about 5 pictures my Surface shut down and when I tried to turn it on a thermometer showed up indicating it was too hot. We are thinking it was over 110 outside. I was worried I wouldn't get any pictures of Petra after that. Luckily we had some cold water in my backpack and we put it next to that. It cooled off enough to work again, but we tried to use it sparingly.

The Siq was probably the most amazing part of Petra. Think of the canyon that they rode through in Indiana Jones and the Search for the Holy Grail. That is the Siq. It reminded me a lot of the canyons in southern Utah, but skinnier and taller. Whereas most canyons are made by a river slowly eroding the walls away, the Siq was made by a massive earthquake. I guess this was the fault line and it just opened up in the earthquake. Some spots were probably about 50 feet wide and others maybe just 15 feet wide. We got to walk through it four different times, and were amazed each time. Back in the first century when Petra was in its prime, there were water channels on both sides of the canyon that would carry water to the city. Although this is the entrance that tourists use now, I guess it was just an entrance for religious ceremonies in the past.

Sorry for all of the pictures, it was just really impressive.




























Right as you exit the Siq you see the Treasury. This was just a tomb with a small inner part, but a very impressive exterior that was carved into the mountains. All throughout Petra were these tombs carved into the mountains. The Treasury one isn't the biggest, but because of its location it has sustained the least damage to it from wind and rain. It is impressive how sharply cut some of the stone lines still are even after 2,000+ years. We couldn't go inside it because it was all blocked off with police guards at the entrance. I am guessing they didn't want a ton of people trying to get the holy grail.





After the Treasury we decided to walk to the Monastery which is at the very far end of the park. It was a six mile walk each way with almost 800 stairs. What made it worse was the heat. We did bring a couple water bottles to help us on the way and we ended up going through 12 refills on them. All along the trail there were kids offering us camel/donkey rides which sounded tempting, but we decided to just do it all on our own.









At the top of the Monastery we took a break to catch our breath and enjoy the view of the Arabian desert. While we were resting there some daredevil started to climb the Monastery building. He was jumping from one part to the next even though there was probably a 50 foot drop if he fell. The Monastery is the biggest of the buildings that were carved into the mountain in Petra. It had tombs in it too, but I guess they also used it as a church over the years.

From the Monastery we slowly made our way back seeing all of the tombs and other ancient ruins along the way. It was amazing to explore them. Lots of the time it seemed like we were the only ones around and so I am not sure if we were supposed to go into all of the places that we went in to. But there were thousands of caves and you could probably spend a month just exploring the whole park.

This was a stadium that they cut into the mountain. If I am remembering right it would seat over 4,000 people.





This was their temple complex. It sounds like it didn't really have a temple in it, but was more of their government offices and bath houses and things like that.






This was their big church. It was built exactly square. It is pretty much the only building that was not carved into the mountain that still stands. Rebecca and I explored it and found a stairway inside one of the walls. It just went up to a window about 2 stories off the ground.



A few more tombs











They called this one the royal tomb. I am not sure if it actually was for their royalty, but the courtyards in front of it were pretty impressive.




The royal tomb probably had the largest inside to it - maybe 50 feet by 50 feet. It is amazing how they cut these exact squares into the rock.


In the center is the place where they offered sacrifices. Some people think maybe they did human sacrifices here.




After a long day we ran to the exit to make it out by closing time at 6 pm. Then we hunted around for a place for dinner and made it back to the hotel exhausted.

We woke up the next morning to enter Petra again at 6 am. This time we really were the only ones in the park. I couldn't believe that there was no one else around. This time we explored some of the closer tombs that we kind of rushed through the previous day. Again, it was all so impressive thinking about the work that must have gone into building this place. We also enjoyed imagining what the town was probably like when it was the center of the kingdom and thousands of people were living there.


After 3 hours in Petra we made our way back to the hotel for the all you can eat breakfast. This is a picture of our breakfast from Aqaba, but it was the same idea for all the breakfasts in Jordan. Just lots of fresh vegetables, pitas with jelly and a dry nut butter thing, hard boiled eggs, hummus, yogurt, omelets, and then I would also usually get a bowl of cereal (that is a nice vacation thing for me since we never have cereal in our house).



Then we checked out and made it to the bus stop for a bus back to Aqaba. Luckily the bus filled up quickly and we only had a 1 hour wait before it took off.

Back in Aqaba we did some walking around waiting for sundown so we could buy some food. We got one of the same dishes we got the first night in Aqaba, a different grilled meat dish, and then stopped by a bakery. We didn't know how much things cost in the bakery, but everything looked so good. Rebecca just told the guy dishing things up to give us one of everything. Really, we only got about half of the things. They were all really good, but also really sugary. We were so stuffed and only got about half way through them.

Dead Sea and Entering Jordan

We woke up early on Sunday morning to drive down to the southern Israel boarder to cross into Jordan. There are three boarder crossing points from Israel to Jordan; one in the north, one in the center, and one in the south. We were already in the northern part of Israel, but we read in the tour guide books that if we were traveling without a tour group, then it is easiest and cheapest to cross at the southern site. When we woke up we checked a few things online before leaving the hotel and we read on one website that the southern crossing was closed to anyone but Israelis. We spent an hour trying to figure it out, but then decided that we just had to go and see what happened.

We drove for about 30 minutes before we crossed into the West Bank area of Israel. There were armed guards there, but they just waved us through. It was a little scary driving through that part, but we just stayed on the freeway and we didn't see anything dangerous. A couple hours later and we were out of the West Bank with another security checkpoint.

Our first stop was going to be Masada. Masada is the ruins of a city that the Jews built up on the very top of the mountain. There are two ways to the top, a cable car ride and a trail. We really wanted to hike to the top and we read that the trail closed at 11 am if it gets too hot outside. We got there at 9:05 am, but they told us that the trail closed 5 minutes earlier at 9 am because it was an extra hot day. We were a little disappointed, but we were also eager to get the boarder crossing taken care of so it wasn't too big of deal.



Our second stop was the Dead Sea. This was amazing. It was really cool just walking out into the water and all the sudden the ground was gone, but I was still standing upright with the water up to my chest. When I was on my back I could also just lay there and even sleep without moving at all and still float right on top of the water. We only spent about 20 minutes there, but felt like we got to experience it enough in that amount of time. Unfortunately that 20 minutes was enough time for them to give us a parking ticket. I missed the sign saying that it was a pay for parking spot.





After the Dead Sea it was a couple more hours until we got to the southern tip of Israel. During this drive we saw a lot of dessert area. At one point we saw Sodom and the area where Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt. We kept driving and got down to Eilat, the southern most city in Isreal. From there we could see Jordan on the east side and Egypt on the west side.





We left the rental car in a parking lot and walked across the boarder. It was really easy and there were no complications at all. Once we got across the boarder we were going to take a 5 mile walk to our hotel except the taxi drivers got us. They told us that by the boarder was a military zone and if we tried to walk it they would make us go back to the Israel side of the boarder. We ended up paying about $20 for the trip. In Jordan everyone was celebrating Ramadan and so there weren't really any places to eat open until about 7 pm (they couldn't eat until 7:45 pm). So, we walked around for a little while exploring Aqaba. While walking around we found a couple really good restaurants that were crowded with people getting take out food so we got some to take back to our hotel. For about $2 per meal we got a huge thing of rice, half a chicken, a pita, and some soup. It is hard to describe the flavors of it, but one of them was a little spicy that had maybe a red curry sauce on it. The chicken was roasted. The other one had a more white yogurt sauce that I think is a traditional Jordanian dish. At that place the chicken had been cooked and soaking in that. Both were really good and we only got about half way through them.