Jordan

   We landed in Jordan last night ( 11:00 PM ) and were relieved to have a driver from our hotel holding a sign up with our name. It was a half hour thru the desert to our city Madaba on the highlands overlooking the Dead Sea Valley. We were pretty tired when we got to the hotel. The hotel is a family run place with about 40 rooms , vintage 1970. It's clean and comfortable but a bit dated. It's got hot water and decent internet ( in the lobby ) so I'm not complaining at $35/night. 

    Jordan is in the Fertile Crescent, the birthplace of civilization. Man first settled into towns here after the earliest beginning of agriculture 10.000 years ago. Wild wheat and other grains still grow wild here, I picked those stalks of fat grain by the side of the road, it grows everywhere. 

   We visited the markets in Old Amman and found them interesting. Amman is a city in a long winding valley. Apartment houses line the ridges with arched front shopping stores following the valley floor. These arched storefronts have various shops, we enjoyed the spice and nut shops for their wonderful variety of exotic treats. Everyone was very friendly and easy to deal with despite the language barrier. When we completed our spice purchase, the shop owner gave us each a small cup of wonderful  coffee. 

   Amman was a Roman city and its amphitheater has survived intact, we also visited a temple on a hill overlooking the valley city bellow. The hilltop site has been used since Neolithic times to present,  including Rome, the early Arab conquerors.,and  the Crusaders

   Our final stop of the day was the Dead Sea, this huge super  salty lake lies feet below sea level.  I couldn't resist swimming in its warm waters . The high salt solution hardly feels like water as I bobbed in the Sea, it almost felt oily, a very strange sensation.  When I asked our guide what was the distant land across the Sea, he replied Palistine. It took me a minute to realize he meant Israel.