We were stranded without a guide after Jude abandoned us at the last Jordanian checkpoint, the minibus driver seemed clueless at the delay, and we continued to swelter in no man's land at the Jordanian-Israeli border in front of a stubbornly lowered boom-gate while machinegun toting soldiers strutted at the checkpoint dead ahead. After an age, the gate lifted and we were allowed to cross the Allenby bridge into Jericho, all of the group members breathing a sigh of relief. Arriving at the customs checkpoint, 4 volunteers from the group gained early access as a "test". Cass was horrified when I volunteered us to enter, and her fears were justified when we were left abandoned for 20 minutes in a kind of stateless limbo after customs and before passport control! Eventually, we were allowed through to meet up with our guide and the rest of the group. It was an inauspicious start to our time in Israel!

The staggering sight of Masada citadel perched atop a precipitous outcrop began to make up for our rocky beginning. The site of a mass suicide by the Jewish inhabitants so they wouldn't be enslaved or slaughtered by the besieging King Herod's army only added to the mystique. The cable car broached the dizzying heights and we toured the ruins before motoring onward to view the panoramic vistas of the Dead Sea, this time from the Israeli side. Jerusalem was next and a cute, boutique hotel was the staging point for a stroll through the city streets enroute to a lively restaurant and a delicious welcome dinner.

Our trip in to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and consequent travel within Israel was often quite tense. There were constant checkpoints and we were warned to have our passports and visas on hand although we were never actually checked. We drove through streets where opposing protesters were gathered either side, Palestinian settlers or Israelis, waving placards and chanting protests. The wall was visible often and the West Bank loomed over many of our journeys. Our guide, Isse, didn't help matters by constantly reminding us of the violence and religious tension in which we were immersed!

We toured all the religious sites and they were eminently interesting, if not leaving us slightly sceptical: was this really the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane? Did Jesus really carry the cross along this Way of Sorrows and fall down here, or put his hand print in the wall there? Come on!

The hordes of pilgrims certainly believed! They were everywhere, of every creed and colour, every size and shape, but with a couple of things always in common: they were rude and pushy and they were blindly adherent to the questionable tales being spun about the sites, so much so that there was much gnashing of teeth and throwing themselves down on any relic or street that held some kind of dubious historical significance. Anyway, it was highly entertaining if nothing else! The Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall are world famous and interesting to see and inspect up close and personal and it was especially weird to see the head bobbing prayers of the faithful against the famous wall!

After seeing all the big attractions in Jerusalem, we travelled on to Nazareth and biblical stomping grounds in the near vicinity. We toured impressive churches and visited towns that had significance because of biblical fame or connections. We sailed the Sea of Galilee in an open fishing boat then dined on the famous local-caught Tilapia which has been consumed in this region since the time of Jesus. To be perfectly honest, we both found it a bit underwhelming! Capernaum (the town of Jesus) and the Mount of Beatitudes rounded out our tour.

Leaving Nazareth the following day we were fascinated by the seaside towns and cities of Akka, Caesarea and Jaffa in turn. Akka had the restored wonders of the Knights Templar's tunnels dating from the 1100s. Extensive underground caverns and huge tunnels were beautifully restored, lit and displayed and held many wonders and treasures. On the way to Caesarea we admired the Bahai gardens on the cliff face at Haifa before exploring the extensive Roman ruins in Caesarea from aqueducts to an amphitheatre and the ruins of an ancient hippodrome. The port city of Jaffa was reached in the late afternoon and we strolled the foreshore, climbed through the hillside alleyways admiring the old city before retiring to our very flash and clean Tel Aviv hotel for the evening. After a bounteous breakfast, we cabbed to the airport for our flight to Istanbul leaving all 12 of our companions behind. What group and adventures awaited us in Turkey?! (Israel photo album here)

 We were met in the lobby of the Cairo hotel by our 12 travelling companions, dispatched onto a bus to the airport, survived all the usual security travails and winged our way onwards to Amman, Jordan. Our group was an eclectic bunch, colours to be revealed (some more quickly than others!) over the next fortnight as we were ensconced in their midst for the entirety of our Jordan and Israel stays. We were all duly bussed to our quite reasonable hotel, the Marriot, through the outskirts and inner suburbs of bustling, cosmopolitan Amman. It seemed eminently civilised and affluent, especially in comparison to the seething, dusty hordes of impoverished humans we'd recently encountered in Egypt.

Cassy was succumbing very quickly to some virulent, energy-sapping bug so we laid low, sourced whatever drugs we could get from a local pharmacy and hoped for the best. The next day, Cass was too wasted to do anything, let alone traipse kilometres through ancient ruins in the sapping sun, so ensuring she was to call the hotel staff if she needed anything, I embarked on the journey to the Amman Citadel, then the city of Jerash. The citadel featured Roman ruins as well as statues dating back to 8,000BC, along with a museum. 

Jerash was spectacular, one of the finest ancient Roman cities, and I was amazed to find an incredible lack of security surrounding the ruins. We were allowed to walk on crumbling mosaic tiles and scramble in and around various temples and colonnaded spaces. It was fascinating to walk on the original, flag stoned streets and see the deep ruts made by chariot wheels! It was on an immense acreage and my phone informed me I'd walked 17 kilometres by the time we returned, so lucky for Cass she'd stayed back to recover.

Cass was slightly recovered only the next day, but was determined not to miss anything else. We were beginning the journey to fabled Petra! Madaba, a market town, featured a 2 million piece mosaic floor depicting a map of the middle east from 560AD was thr first stop on the way. The bus then braved the dizzying heights of the King's Highway on the way to the impressive, ancient Crusader castle known as Shobak, perched on a mountain in near lunar landscapes. We trekked up the hill to investigate the handsome edifice, complete with catapult ammunition and slit windows for archer defence. Bussed onwards and ever upwards, we eventually arrived in the gloom of early evening to our hotel, defying gravity on the edge of a ridgeline and with a spectacular view of the town of Petra and the intimidating stone mountains hiding the ancient wonder itself! As we watched from the pool deck, great bales of mist rolled in, completely shrouding the mountains in a mater of minutes...yet more mystery!

With rain forecast, we made an early start the next morning. Our guide, Judeh, was an odd fellow, but I rated him as he had been very concerned and helpful when Cass was really sick. He guided us through the early tracks down into the valley, the sides of which increasingly rose and loomed, striated colours of rock, fashioned by wind and water over millennia into the most beautiful, sculptural shapes. The alley going down got ever more spectacular as we went, soaring high above us on either side, we had to strain our necks to spot a glimpse of the sky. On one of our regular stops to speak about some feature or other, he encouraged us to look back the way we'd come and move to the other side of the cavern. He then told us to turn around. To our amazement he'd manoeuvred us in to the perfect position to get our first look at the Treasury Building, that famous site much photographed in travel brochures. It was simply jaw dropping and a moment we'll never forget! Just then, however, the first plump, cold drops of rain fell and our day was to change quite dramatically!

It's an incredibly rare event to be allowed to enter the Treasury, but the crowd was given permission as the rain pelted down, water surged down the canyon and the little shelter from overhanging rock shelves seemed reserved for the Bedouin's camels and horses! It's rather unremarkable inside but affords a different view looking inside out. Eventually we braved the easing rain and ventured further down the gorge to the myriad of other carved abodes and temples. We spent hours trekking, photographing and drinking in the awesome colours of the rock washed in recent showers. Just as we reached the Treasury again to begin the long journey back up the cavern, it really hammered down! We were wading through shin deep, rushing water to get back and we weren't surprised to hear the site had been closed to new visitors and would remain so the following day. Lucky for us! We had the hairdryer working overtime that night drying shoes and had a magnificent local feast at a nearby restaurant. It was a day to remember!

We admit to our naiveite, but we had previously barely registered the name or place of Wadi Rum. How foolish did we feel when we drank in the full majesty of this surreal desert landscape?! After Petra, we were quite prepared to have a day of lesser wonder as few things in the world could compare. Well, this was, if anything, even more astounding. We bussed across vast plains of nothingness, stunning barren landscapes with odd little truck-stops evoking Jeffrey Smart paintings, and little else, until increasingly spectacular cliffs and rock formations began to rise from the desert on either side of the road. Pulling into a dusty, ramshackle town we transferred into 4 wheel drive utes driven by variously, fresh faced 14 year-olds or ancient, head-scarved, cigarette smoking, grizzled Bedouins. Our luggage was bundled inside the twin-cabs and we were hoisted onto bench seats in the open back trays, where we were to bump and bounce for hours across a landscape so surreal we thought we were dreaming!

Featuring in movies such as "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Martian" amongst others, this other worldly landscape has to be seen to be believed. The utes jammed through rutted sand tracks to reveal mountain after dune after natural wonder. Every time we rounded an outcrop, there was a completely different vista. We stopped, explored and climbed endlessly, until finally we arrived at our Bedouin camp and our luxury "tent" for the night. A billowing cloth hovered above the bed, an air conditioner kept the desert freeze at bay and we had a great night's sleep after gazing at a sky ablaze with starlight from our tiny veranda. After a hearty breakfast we boarded camels for a leisurely ride around the area and yet more sensational vistas before heading back to the utes, a rendezvous with the bus, then a trip to a vastly different landscape, the Dead Sea. On the way, we stopped briefly to view the puffing, still working steam locomotive used in the movie of Lawrence of Arabia! 

Our final flirtation with the wonders of Jordan was a visit (and swim!) in the Dead Sea. Driving down, ever downwards this time, until we were below sea level we stopped at a luxury resort for a buffet lunch before donning swimmers and heading into the thick waters of the salt-laden sea! Doing the obligatory rubdown with mud from great vats of the stuff on the beach, we duly entered and floated around. Various tricks of flotation were attempted, but I found it difficult to keep my head above water when on my stomach, such was the force of the salt suspending the body on the very top layers. It was quite the unique sensation! Showered and with curiosity satisfied we headed back to Amman for the evening before heading to Israel in the morning, bright and early in what was to prove a tension-filled start to our Israeli adventure! (Jordan photo album here)