road to Petra

We took the King's Highway today, 300 kms south from Madaba to Petra, driven by our trusty driver Ahmed who we seem to see every day and today all of the day! There is no public transport on this route and as we travelled down it we realised why. There are the boring sections on top of the plateaux with the usual untidy villages and towns along it, the pickups full of Bedouin and their goats but there were also the most spectacular gorges to travel down and then up again and incredibly beautiful views from heights of up to 1,200 metres. The sun was bright and hot but the breeze was chilly. Our only stop was at Karak to visit an old Crusader fort later captured by Saladin. After a visit (and having picked up the inevitably guide - they are always useful but difficult to avoid) we rejoined Ahmed for mint tea and falafels, in fact we could live on them (well we almost have been), we ate and drank with the ringing Friday sermon being loudly broadcast all around us and then pressed on with each village also ringing with the sound of the sermons. One place also had a small protest march of young people protesting the slaughter in Gaza.

We reached Wadi Musa - the small town for Petra during the afternoon, taken to a hotel that
Ahmed knows where we were greeted with more mint teas and a cheap room rate - that can't be bad and helps pay for having to take a taxi most of the way down Jordan! Tomorrow its the Rose Red City for us, in fact probably for the next couple of days.

Brian