Jerash, Madaba and the Dead Sea

Trip Start Jun 29, 2008
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Trip End Nov 27, 2008


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Flag of Jordan  ,
Monday, September 22, 2008

First stop in Jordan was Jerash, site of yet another Roman city, this time complete with a hippodrome in which they run chariot races for the tourists.  This was one of Ben's most anticipated parts of the holiday, so I was hoping it lived up to his expectations.  Thankfully, he enjoyed it, although he was disappointed when the race was aborted prematurely as one of the 2 chariots lost a wheel.  All the excitement was obviously too much for me, with the result that on clambering around the ruins subsequently, I managed to land a bad way and twist my ankle badly, being able to only just limp out of there after icing it for a good 20 minutes with it tied in my hanky compression bandage!!  This was our second accident for the day, as our travelling companion had earlier fallen down a non-existent flight of stairs in the dark in Bosra and probably broken his toe.  The pair of us limping was probably an amusing sight!
 
None-the-less, we finally made it to Madaba, still in one piece.  Madaba is a small town renowned for mosaics, in particular a mosaic map on the floor of a church, dating back to possibly the 6th century.  Unfortunately we found the mosaics a little underwhelming, however I believe staying in Madaba is probably preferable to the alternative of Amman, the capital, before continuing down towards the big tourist drawcard of Jordan - Petra!  We elected to head down to Petra via the Dead Sea, where a 'swim' is quite a novel experience.
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