Day 6 Dead Sea - Petra

Thursday 12 July (Day 6) Silk Road hotel, Petra, Jordan 299/3518 km
Because we did not have far to go we took our time to get up and have a last luxury, leisure breakfast in this 5-star Hotel. We finally left at 10:30 and drove back up the mountain past Moses lookout on Mount Nebo to Madaba. The first thing we encountered this morning was one of the numerous police checkpoints along the road. As we were probably the first foreign car they saw and I guess they were bored as well, they stopped us for a chat. After checking our car registration paper and taking their time as well, they let us go. Madaba town was crowded and the roads narrow so in the first hour we only did some 50 km. We drove over the Kings “highway” (a 2-lane uneven road) which runs over the top of the mountains parallel to the Dead Sea. It is a rolling landscape with several settlements along the way. The hills are covered with golden colored wheat. The wheat is very short and in many sections already harvested. Everywhere you see Bedouin tents in the fields and goat herders (often riding their donkey or horse) with their goats or sheep. I assume the tents are for the herders and possible the families for harvesting the wheat. We did not see much large machinery so I am not sure how the wheat is cut. The fields seem too big to be cut by hand. On 3 occasions the hilltop road crosses a large wadi where we have to descend from some 600 – 800 m down to 200 m. These wadis often have a dam at the bottom for collecting the water. At around 15:00 we reached our first goal of the day: The Dana Nature reserve. The reserve is on the mountain ridge which slopes down into the Dead Sea valley. It has a watch tower from where we had a great view over the eroded rocks and the gorge below. The area was lightly wooded with pine trees. There is a campsite with permanent tents. I was tempted to ask if we could stay there but the boys wanted to go on (No TV on a camp site). Three quarters of an hour later we reached Shobak Castle. Another crusader castle built by Baldwin 1. It is on a commanding hill top but clearly not as dominate as the Karak castle. The restoration process is still ongoing and maybe because of that there was no entrance fee. Only Rudy did a round of the ruins. The rest of the crew preferred to stay in the car. From Shobak it was only ½ hr to Petra or in this case, the village of Wadi Musa. The village hugs the cliff of the wadi and Petra is then the section where the wadi cuts through the mountain. We drove up and down the town to find a cheap hotel. There were enough of them but what do you really want? It was difficult for some to accept the step back from the 5 star Dead Sea Hotel to the Silk Road Hotel next to the Movenpick at the bottom of the wadi, close to the entrance of Petra. It is a lot less luxury but at 35 Euro per room almost 1/5 of the price of the Dead Sea resort. The aircon is not working too well so I will have to discuss this with the manager. Outside it is however now cooling down (28 deg) because we are at 1400 m.