It was a good thing we didn't cancel our tour yesterday because the Petra park and several roads leading out of the city were closed due to snow! When we woke up we could see that the hillside was very foggy and it was raining quite hard at the hotel. The lights even flickered once during an especially loud clap of thunder. We had planned to leave a bit later but Zaid called to tell us that we would be playing it by ear… The roads leading out of Petra to the north were closed because they had gotten several inches of snow and there were some people trapped on the roadways! He and the travel office were getting a hold of the police to determine when the roads would be passable. We settled back in and started to read our books for a bit. When he called back he said that the roads were open and that we should leave as soon as possible since there was a chance for more snow in the afternoon.

We headed out of Petra and we were surprised by how much snow they had gotten when we got out of the city. It was definitely a few inches! They had mostly big payloaders plowing the roads, but we did see at least one grater. They did pretty well, but in some parts they hadn't plowed our lane yet, or there were large snow chunks in the middle of the road so the driving was a bit treacherous. Ultimately, Zaid did quite well in the snow. I again took the time when it was foggy and not very interesting to take a quick nap. I awoke and we were out of the snow, but it was still pretty cold outside. We thought it was interesting that Jordan seems to have a lot more infrastructure than Israel in the desert part of the country. We saw many more small towns than we did in Israel, but it's likely because the land is not as mountainous, so even though it's dry it's relatively easy to get to.

After a couple of hours we made it to Madaba, a city known for its great mosaics. The most famous is the one in the St. George Orthodox church. It was discovered in the 1800s that the church floor contained a mosaic that was an ancient Byzantine map of the Holy Land, including a very detailed map of Jerusalem. It is interesting to note that our guide in Jerusalem used a small picture of this mosaic to explain some of the ancient architecture and city structure. Also of note that the discovery of this ancient map helped to discover several ancient places in Jerusalem that had not been excavated yet. Only about 1/3 of the map was able to be salvaged when they found it. In the museum they estimated that the original took over two million pieces of stone and would take one person over two years to make! I think people in the first couple of centuries had a lot more patience than we do now!

After we left the church we made a stop at a local mosaic workshop. It was very interesting to see how they create the replicas that we have been seeing in some of the gift shops. The stone is all from Jordan and there are not any dyes used. They are all cut by hand and glued into place backwards onto a piece of cloth. Then a frame is made and cement is put into the frame. They flip the cloth with stones onto the frame and press the stones in so that they are all the same height. Finally once the cement has hardened they can soak the cloth in water and the glue (and cloth) comes right off! They showed us pieces that took over 6 months to create. It seems like very painstaking work. But the replicas were very beautiful!

After our stop in Madaba we drove past Mount Nebo but it was pouring rain and we decided we had learned enough about mosaics and we could skip the sight. We then started our decent to the Dead Sea. We started at 6 degrees Celsius (43 degrees F) and ended up at 18 (64 F) by the time we got to our hotel. Our hotel is about 400 feet below sea level, as the Dead Sea valley is the lowest point on earth!

We checked into the hotel and relaxed for a bit. We took a walk around and then had a nice dinner at the Italian restaurant in the hotel. Kevin was happy to see that they had a wood fired pizza oven! We are hoping for nice weather tomorrow so that we can relax by the pool and hopefully take a quick float in the Dead Sea. We are also hoping to book a mud wrap or some other treatment at the spa at the hotel to take advantage of all the Dead Sea minerals we've been hearing so much about!

Keely