Monday 21 June 2010

Canyons, Castles and more Moses

Wadi Mujib is one of the great natural landscape sights on the Kings

Wadi Mujib 2

Highway. Going south, the view reminds one of a smaller version of the Grand Canyon and almost as impressive.

Further south is another Crusader Castle – Karak built in 1142 by King

Karak Left

Baldwin 1st of Jerusalem as one of a line of defensive power asserting castles running from North to South. The town runs straight out from one side of the castle on the top of the ridge.

Karak Plan

Its design is similar to that of other castles (by now we are beginning to get a bit blasé about castles, having seen so many) but aspects of its design, its position and internal construction are still impressive.

Further south is yet another castle, this time Qal’at ash-Shawbak. Sitting

Qal’at ash-Shawbak

on top of the obligatory hill it contains a very fine secret underground passageway plus a number of religiously significant points in its design,

Qal’at ash-Shawbak Church

such as the fact that the supporting arch in the Church (as seen in the picture above) is made up from 33 stones – one for each year of the life of Christ.

Moses pops up again on the outskirts of Wadi Musa – the town which acts as the entrance to Petra. Here we see a rock from which water is flowing – this is one of two contenders for the place where “Moses raised his arm

Moses Rock 

and struck the rock twice with his staff and water gushed and the

Moses Water

community and their livestock drank”.

And so we have arrived at Petra – one of the two highlights of the trip.

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