shoshtrvls

Today started with a border crossing – the Allenby bridge between Israel and Jordan. We arrived at the bridge well before the 8 a.m. but still weren’t allowed to cross the first checkpoint until after 9 a.m. There was a definite pecking order: first the trucks went, and there were many of them, then the empty taxis and vans to pick people up crossing from Jordan, and there were many of them, and then yellow Palestinian shared taxis started to go, and there were many of them. And of course each vehicle had to be searched, the drivers had to show their papers, and everything had to be inspected. Fortunately, Shuki’s smile and pleas (“I have another job to pick up in Jerusalem – what will I do?”) got us through. Did I mention how much I liked Shuki?

At the Israeli side of the border, we were passed through rather quickly, but no one offered the slightest bit of help or explanation to the few of us travelers who clearly had not done this before. “Where do we go now?” “Why are you taking our luggage?” Eventually, we figured out that we had to take another shuttle bus to the Jordanian border crossing, a bus that didn’t leave for 45 minutes. Once on the bus, we were stopped twice for document checks and at the last our passports were taken.

Arriving in Jordan was a welcome sight. Mansur, our driver for the day, was there waiting for us and now we weren’t lost at all. He made sure our luggage got to the car, our passports were returned to us and all was right with the world.

We then began the drive down the Kings Highway, passing Bedouin camps and small villages, eventually arriving at our first stop, Mt. Nebo. Mr. Nebo is thought to be the place were Moses saw Israel before dying and like all other religious sites here in the Middle East, there were layers upon layers of the people who had come since – the Romans, the Byzantines, the Crusaders, the Muslims. There were some Roman excavations going on, and some beautiful Byzantine mosaics on display.

From Mt. Nebo we drove to the nearby town of Mandaba for lunch and a quick stop at St. George’s Church, known for its 6th Century mosaic of the Middle East. Not all of it remains but from what is there, you can tell that this was an extraordinary work.