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U3A Holiday to Jordan
Fred Ogden has recently organised and
led a very successful
holiday in Jordan
and Egypt
for the U3A groups in
the Marple and Romiley area. 43 members flew from
Manchester on Friday 29th.
February to Taba
Airport,
on the Sinai Peninsular in Egypt,and crossed the
Gulf of Aqaba by ferry to Aqaba in Jordan. The
next day our coach,
with our Jordanian guide and a young
member of the
Tourist Police, took us to Wadi Rum, made
famous by Laurence
of Arabia, where we experienced a
Jeep
ride through the desert among fascinating sandstone cliffs and
spent the night
in
Bedouin tents –
quite an experience!
After an
al fresco breakfast at the camp we continued our
drive northwards to Wadi Musa, a
small town near the lost
Nabatean city of Petra
– the “Rose-red City half
as old as time”. We explored a
Nabatean site, known as Little Petra,
a mini version of Petra
itself.
We spent about six
hours exploring Petra
the next day; we walked
through the Siq, which
is a narrow winding gorge,
and suddenly
found ourselves gazing in wonder at the so-called Treasury,
the most
famous of the many tombs carved
into the rock face on each side
of the
now-wider gorge. The tombs, which were carved into the walls
of the sandstone
gorge, dated from c. 300BC to the Roman
period, the facades showing obvious
Greek influence. The city was later taken
over by the Romans, who cut
more
tombs but also built their own city and temples in the more open area
where the
Nabateans actually lived.
There is also a Byzantine church with interesting
mosaicflooring.
On our
journey north to Amman,
the capital, we visited the
ruins of a Crusader castle atShabak, which was later
taken by Saladin.
The next sight was the mosaic map of the Holy
Land, dating from c. 560AD, which was part of the
floor
of a Byzantine church, now built
over by a Greek Orthodox church in the town of Madaba.
( Jordan
has a small
Christian population. ) We were then taken to the
top of Mt.
Nebo, from which Moses viewed the Promised Land and
where he died. We could
just make out the Dead Sea, but the haze prevented us from
seeing Jerusalem on
the other side
of the Jordan Valley.
From Amman we visited the
remains of Umm Qais, the
Greco-Roman city of Gadara, from
which we could view
the Golan Heights, the Sea of Galilee and
the Jordan
Valley, and
also the spectacular remains of the Roman city of
Jerash Unfortunately we were allowed
only an hour or so to explore this – a full day would have
been much better –
it
is one of the best preserved in the Middle East
with paved streets, a
hippodrome, threetheatres, many temples and
Byzantine churches ( 15 of which
have so far been discovered ).
Before
the long coach journey back to Aqaba we spent a few
hours by the Dead Sea
at400
metres below sea level,
where we had the amusing experience of
floating half
out of the water and being smeared in smelly black mud to
beautify
the skin! It
was just possible to make out Jerusalem
on top of the distant hills and Jericho.
Our last
night was spent in Aqaba, then we were ferried over
to Egypt
again, where all
but 6 of us stayed in the Taba
Heights
holiday hotel
complex for another week.
The
holiday was varied and educational – our Guide spoke to
us of all aspects of life in Jordan
– and our understanding
of the situation in the Middle East has improved.
Many
thanks to all concerned, particularly to Fred for
organising the holiday.
John Grimsey.
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