Middle East Trip 2003: Syria | Lebanon | Jordan | Palestine The Palestinian-Israeli conflict Travelogue
Day 02 - Madaba
21-09-2003
We woke up late, about 11:00 AM and after a brief breakfast with pita bread and apricot jam (or something similar), we decided to explore Madaba. The plan was to visit the city in the morning and go to Mount Nebo at sunset.

The bizantine church of Saint George (1 JD) is simple but nice, and the famous map mosaic is well conserved. It's advisable to see the guide that is located near the entry of the church to locate the places which are refered in the map, because at first look only Jerusalem is recognizable.
Byzantine Church of Madaba, that houses the first mosaic of the Holy Land
Jerusalem in the mosaic map
After a walk around the village and a visit to the Madaba Museum (1 JD), that have some beatiful mosaics, we decided to find the bus station to locate the bus to Amman for the next day. Apparently, all the buses arrive to the Wahedat station, and our "service taxi" to Damascus (Syria) departures from Abdali, so, better to carry on our luggage is to take a taxi to Amman.

We had lunch at Haret Jdoudna restaurant, with an open area and a flat roof. The election can't be better, as much for the food as for the place. As well as the traditional Hummous, a course based on eggplant, Baba Ganoush, and chicken with yogourt. The final price was 6 JD, we were surprised about the cheap price (Lonely Planet said it was expensive but good).
Having lunch at Haret Jdoudna in Madaba
The lunch : Baba Ganough, Homous and Chicken with yogourt. Excelent.
After resting for a while, in the afternoon, Charl managed for us a taxi driver to go to Mount Nebo and pick up us there after the sunset, for only 5 JD. It's only five minutes by car. We paid 1 JD at the entry, and luckyly we encountered the place without people, except for a young couple and an arab family. After a brief walk to the top of the hill, we arrived to the small hermitage, were Moses is supposedly buried, after leading his people through the desert and saw the promised land from here before dying.
Mark that indicate the place of the Moses Memorial at Mount Nebo
The Mount Nebo church where Moses was buried
View of Moses Church
The view of the Jordan Valley from the promomtory of the forge cross is amazing and the sunset over Dead Sea and Palestine made us think about if this is the last time we could see this region, or finally, we will decide to go to Jerusalem for some days. The poster indicating the position and distance of the visible palestinian cities in well-lit days cheered us up to go there.
Poster of the distances and orientation of the most important places of the Holy Land
Sunset near to Mount Nebo cross
Sunset over Palestine
On the way back, the taxi driver, took longer than we expect to pick us up. The family that works there paying attention to the place, especially the kids, repeatedly take care of us and insisted to help us finding a transport to return to the village. For their own peace of mind the taxi driver arrived. Taking advantage of the good prices, we agreed with him the ride to Amman next morning for 6 JD.

By night, we visited an arab cake shop in the center of the village, where they invited us to taste the delicious local sweets, called Baklawa. It's stored in huge rolling pins, after being cooked over enormous round trays. We bought 1 Kg of variated Baklawa for 1.5 JD, and even so, they gave us as a present two pieces more. The final of the day couldn't be more sweet.