A rental car and five days were all we had to explore this beautiful Middle Eastern country. Although its most famous jewel is Petra, Jordan has many historical and natural sites that are wonderful and worth exploring. But as always, time is the problem (especially when you choose to visit more than one country), which forces you to select not only the places, but the time you want to spend in each one of them. In our case, we visited the ones I tell you about below. In order not to overwhelm you with so much information, I will go into more detail about Petra and Wadi Rum in other articles.
Amman
At the beginning, we took the capital of the country as our base, to visit some important places nearby, but for which we needed to take the road. Amman has interesting places like the Citadel, the Roman Theatre, the Odeon, the King Abdullah I Mosque, among others, but to be honest, I felt that you don’t miss much if you don’t spend any time there. In our case, we stayed two nights at the beginning and one more at the end, but it was mostly because of the schedules of our flights.
Byzantine mosaics from Madaba
Just under an hour from Amman lies Madaba, also known as “the city of mosaics”, as ancient mosaics were found there that helped describe the history of the place. The most famous of these is the Madaba Map found on the floor of the small Orthodox Church of St. George.
This map is a very important religious sight, because it is the oldest map of the Holy Land, which allows us to see what the region of these biblical sites was like. The mosaic dates back to the 6th century and was made with 2 million pieces. Although a good part of it was destroyed, what remains of the map (still quite large) is beautiful. The map is mentioned as the place where Jesus was baptized.
Mount Nebo
From Madaba, we moved on to Mount Nebo, also an important religious site, as it was from there that Moses would have seen the Promised Land. It is also the place where Moses would have died and the Ark of the Covenant would have been hidden nearby. At the top of the mountain, you get very nice views and there you can find information about the locations of the nearby territories. In addition, in the Old Baptistery, you can see other impressive mosaics.
Betábara or Bethany
Visiting this place really moved me. I am not going to lie, I am not the most religious person, but I do like visiting religious places (of any religion) and just imagining that Jesus was baptized there made me very emotional.
To visit this site, you have to go with a guide, you cannot enter on your own, but don’t worry, the visitor centre organizes guided tours from where you are first taken by bus and then have to walk a little to the place of baptism. What happened there? Well, in this area lived Saint John the Baptist, and it was on the bank of the Jordan River, opposite Jericho, where he is said to have seen and baptized Jesus. Although the river moved a few meters and no longer flows through there, but we walked a little further until we reached it.
Something curious that happened to me, was that at the beginning of the tour, they bring you to an (expensive) store to buy souvenirs, especially rosaries. Since I hate those kind of forced sale stops, I didn’t buy anything, nor did I realize at that moment the reason for the rosaries. I always carry with me a rosary that my mother gave me a long time ago, but that morning, I had left it in my backpack in the car. By chance that I still can’t explain, that day, I put on a rosary bracelet that an aunt gave me years ago and that I never wear because it is too big for me. I don’t even know why I took it on this trip. But when they took us to the Jordan River and everyone started to wet their rosaries, I got all excited and well, I took off my bracelet and very happily wet it in the river too.
Dead Sea
Like every traveler, I longed to float in the Dead Sea. Although we went in winter and it was cold in the rest of the country, the temperature in the Dead Sea area was actually quite pleasant. This sea is not actually a sea, it is a lake and it is the second saltiest body of water in the world. That is, 10 times saltier than the sea.
There is no life in the Dead Sea, no fish, everything dies and everything floats. It is also the lowest place in the world, since it is 389 meters below sea level. Obviously, we wanted to feel the sensation of getting in and floating and of course take a photo of us like every tourist. However, it is not so easy to find a place to access it, since the public places were closed or very dirty, and you also need to bathe after getting into the salty water. So we followed the recommendations of other blogs and the people of Jordan themselves: buy a day pass at a hotel or beach club.
We only found the Oh Beach Resort open, where we paid 20 dinars per person (about 30 USD each) to enter and rent a towel. Some of the facilities were nice, although very neglected, but we only wanted to go in for a little while to get into the water and it was totally worth it. I thought the Dead Sea was beautiful and there is nothing like living a new experience. I can’t tell you more ;-).
From there, we continued on to Petra, but I have soooo much to tell you about that place, as well as the Wadi Rum desert, that I will do it in separate articles.
This story about Jordan will continue…
Travel tips
- Buy the Jordan Pass, it includes some attractions and the visa.
- Visit in winter, it is less crowded and has better weather.
- Bring rosaries or items that you want to dip into the Jordan River.
- Euros and/or US dollars are accepted everywhere.
- Bring water shoes, there are a lot of sharp rocks in the Dead Sea.
If you want us to design and organize your trip to Jordan through our travel agency Tripdreaming, contact me at silvia.lucero@tripdreaming.com. For editorial questions, write to silvia.lucero@latrotamundos.com.
