Day 6

We had an awesome view of the Petra valley from our hotel room. This is the nicest hotel we've stayed in so far. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. This morning we got up at 6:00, breakfast at 7:00. At 8:00, we walked to Petra. It was right next to our hotel. We walked through which was like the Grand Canyon of Jordan. There is an old city and buildings that were carved into the mountains. Those who couldn't do the walk could ride a horse drawn carriage but it was $50 roundtrip for 2 people and it didn't even go down the whole way. You could also ride a horse down for $3 each way. We first had to walk downhill for about an hour because our guide was explaining stuff to us. Then at the end of the walk, we arrived at The Treasury which is what Petra, Jordan is famous for. If you haven't heard or seen of The Treasury of Petra, you should look it up online. It was pretty cool to see it. After spending 20 minutes looking around and taking pictures, we had to walk back up. The walk back up took about 40 minutes. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We did a little bit of shopping from some of the vendors before boarding our bus. We were now on our way to Mt. Nebo where Moses was shown the Promised Land. We stood on top of the mountain and had a similar view to what Moses had. We could see the Dead Sea in the distance. After about an hour there, we were on our way to Madaba. Madaba is a small city in Jordan where we viewed Byzantine Mosaics, one of which is the oldest map of the Holy Land. After that, we left Madaba to go to Amman, which is the capital of Jordan. We arrived at our hotel around 6:30 and had dinner at 7:00. This hotel isn't as nice as the last one but the free wireless internet makes up for that. The room is bigger but the furnishings aren't as nice. Tomorrow, we will tour Amman and then cross the border into Israel. With everything happening over there, it may take us a while to cross the border. Once we cross into Israel, we'll be staying in the same hotel in Tiberias for 3 nights. It will be nice to not have to pack up our luggage to move again. We've been in different hotels the last four nights. So far, it has been amazing to go to all these sites mentioned in the Bible. I am now sore though from the Mt. Sinai hike.