What a day.
The 15 hours flight to Qatar went very smoothly followed by a quick change over
to our flight to Amman. (Looking forward to spending some time at the enormous
and extraordinary airport at Doha on our way back).
All the people have been wonderfully friendly. And
they know all the important details about Australia – Kangaroos, Koalas, a
beautiful bridge and live sheep exports to Jordan.
What a
different place this is! Lots of the homes look unfinished, with pillars
standing ready for an extra storey on the roof. The landscape down the middle of
the country along the Desert Highway was very bleak – rocks, rocks and more
rocks. What a relief to head towards the Dana Nature reserve and to see some
grass, wildflowers, and even some trees. Extraordinary canyons and cliff faces.
We didn’t have time for a hike, but loved the views.
But the
highlight of the day was certainly Shobak Castle.
A mountain originally built
upon by the Romans, the crusader King Baldwin 1 (King of Jerusalem) built this
massive castle in the 11th century to guard the caravan route, and
it withstood the siege of Saladin and his forces for 18 months, thanks to the height
of the hill and the tunnel dug by hand to the spring at the bottom of the hill. Only catapults hurtling these rocks finally won the day.
Our guide
was absolutely wonderful – so knowledgeable and engaging even though he's been doing this tour since 1992; he's very much a local - in fact, his grandfather lived in the castle until the 1950s when the government built the locals a better
village close by.
The most extraordinary
part was the journey down the tunnel for 365 steps to the bottom of the hill –
an astounding feat of forced labour but a fabulous experience for us.
Tomorrow –
the ancient ruins of Petra.
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