"Oh, the Places You'll Go!": Mount Nebo and the Dead Sea

Hello All,

Sorry for the delay in blogging. After I got back from the Badia, I had a lot of homework and stuff I needed to do. Also, I was really exhausted.

The day after we came back from the Badia, the group went as a class on a field trip.

The first place we visited was the Greek Orthodox Church in Madaba, St. George's Church. The church houses one of the first maps of the holy land. Many people come to visit this map. The church itself is beautiful too. The church is 30 km south of Amman.

Below is a part of the map. It was constructed during the Byzantine Era. The map was discovered in 1896 when people were building on the sight. They descided to show their parish priest who then told them to stop building. Because of the discovery as well as others, the city of Madaba is know as the city of mosaics. The surviving mosaic pieces number at least 2 million. It is know for its detail to attention and depicts towns and rivers up in Palestine and the Nile Valley. Jerusalem is labeled as well as the colonaded street that leads to it. This map has allowed scholars to determine what Jerusalem looked like before it was destroyed in 70 ad.

Next, we went to visit Mount Nebo. This is believed to be the mountain where Moses viewed the Promise Land before he died.While his grave site has never been found, it is also believed that Moses was burried here as well. On a clear day (Unfortunately, ours was not clear), you can see Palestine, the Jordan River and Jerusalem from this summit. Honestly, If I was shown this piece of land, I would have felt sad. It is barren. Plus, Joshua had to lead the Israelites in conquering the land because people were already living there. This seems like a lot of work for a piece of land with no resources, especially if you were coming from the lands with pyramids and great technology. The Isrealites must have really fought for this land.

A View not of Palestine and Israel, but in the opposite direction

The tree is alledgely the sight where Moses hit a stone in order to get the Israelites to stop complaining about having no water. This resulted in 40 more years in the desert. Honesly, I can't blame Moses. There is nothing around and barely any water there even today. Its still desert.

Mose's View. That large lake in the background is part of a development. It is not natural and Moses would not have yelled "Great, the Israelites have water!".

All the cool places you can see from where Moses might have stood.

After Mount Nebo, the group went to the Amman Tourist Beach near the Dead Sea. This was amazing! The resort was beautiful and was almost a shocking experience after living in the Badia for five days. If you lay on your back in the water, you will literally float. I put all four limbs up in the air in front of my body and floated like a log for as long as I wanted. It was awesome! I also covered myself in the black mud which is said to be good for your skin. Personally, I didn't notice a difference, but it was a good experience. I bought some mud mask for my face to try at home.

The Dead Sea is bordered by Israel and Jordan. It is 33.7% (8.6x saltier than the ocean) salt and is the saltiest body of water in the world. King Herod used the Dead Sea as a health resort.

So so beautiful!

The avoiding the salt water from getting in your eyes is most important. I got it in my eyes by mistake and had to be lead back to shore. It burned so bad I lost my vision.