Petra to the Dead Sea

We left Petra the next morning, and drove along the ancient mountain road, dropping down long passes to cross wadis every 10km or so. Some of the wadis had wonderful geology exposed on the flanks of the valleys, and you could see with dramatic clarity where ancient volcanoes had poked their way through the earth's crust. The bottom of each crossing was usually green and lush, then the road climbed back up, and was soon a desert moonscape again.

At lunch we reached the town of Kerak, dominated by a crusader castle. We found our way up through narrow streets, then crossed a deep moat to get into the castle.

The stone-clad glacis was a formidable defense. The idea of climbing this while being bathed in hot oil was not attractive. Within the castle, there were buildings that had suffered the ravages of time and battle - this church still stood, some 800 years since it was last used:
which was amazing when one thought of the earthquakes to which this region is prone. When you went deeper into the castle, you found even more remarkable structures. Under the church, for instance, was a mosque, built by the muslim conquerors:

Deeper still, there were wide, dark passageways leading to rooms lit by narrow slit windows that looked down, down down into the valley far below:
There was even a kitchen, with ovens and millstones and washing places, dusty but proably still functional if cleaned up. They used to feed over 2000 when under siege, as the Crusaders occasionally were. Leaving the castle, we threaded our way through a maze of one-way streets in the town, and finally dropped into the valley leading to the shores of the Dead Sea. A wonderful road led along the eastern margin, carved into the cliffs in places. At one point, Mrs Lot, all of 30m tall, towered above us:On the brim of the Dead Sea, a rime of white salt several meters high showed how the level was dropping:
Jordan, Palestine and Israel are tapping the fresh-water streams that feed into the Sea, and it is slowly becoming saltier and saltier.


Further up the coast we came to Sulimeyeh, a resort on the edge of the Dead Sea. We stayed in a fantasy hotel, with an "Arab village" theme of walkways and small courtyards, many with cooling fountains tinkling in their midst:Down at the edge of the sea was a picture-postcard pool, with a view over the Sea to the Israeli shores on the West Bank:
We felt we deserved a night of luxury after the donkeys of Petra!