After waking up this morning, we left out hotel in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee and wnet to the southern end to perform several baptisms. We then continued south along the Jordanian border and visited Gideon Springs (see Judges 6 and 7, I think) and then Bet She'an, where King Saul was killed back in the Old Testament. In New Testament times, it was a GrecoRoman city called Skythopolis and was one city - the ruling city, I think of the Decapolis area where Jesus ministered.
Then we passed through security checkpoints (both in Israel, leaving, and in Jordan, arriving) at the Jordan River crossing - the northernmost point to go through, I think.
Once our new drivers and guides had picked us up, we had a *ahem* rather hair-raising 2 hour trip to Mount Nebo, where God showed Moses the promised land, and where Moses then died. After another, um, stomach-challenging hour, we arrived at our hotel on the north eastern side of the Dead Sea (totally awesome hotel, BTW, but I'll really blog about it after I return to the States). Time to relax and have dinner!
Tomorrow we go to Petra (UPDATE: here is an excellent site for information about Petra: there's a LOT more than I knew was there!)
I will definitely be out of moblogging range all day, because it's a 3.5 hour trip down to Petra (and another 3.5 back, of course), and I strongly suspect that cell reception is marginal at best. So I'll use the airplane mode to preserve battery and take pics.
Jordan is great country and i like that country because its so clean and i have gone many time but really amazing and their people.
Posted by: Shiasmith | July 30, 2010 at 06:23 AM
Probably a lot of countries and groups are called names not of their native language. It is not unusual. It is true, Palestinian is a name given to the area. But the people of Palestine, regardless of their name are very real.
Posted by: XTREME NO | August 07, 2010 at 06:25 AM