By Morton Fisher
When most travelers think about Jordan they think only inevitably about Petra — but there is much more to Jordan than Petra. Petra is every bit amazing as you may envision. Our most lasting memory of Petra, aside from the breathtaking entrance, was climbing to the high place above Petra Valley on the backs of our donkeys. We don’t know who was more glad to reach the top — our guides, ourselves or the donkeys. The view was spectacular. What made Petra especially interesting and enjoyable was that we were able to explore it on three separate days, not just the one day or part of a day most tours spend in Petra. Almost equally amazing were the Roman cities, Jerash in particular. We could almost hear the Roman soldiers marching along the wide streets and the chariots in the Hippodrome.
The real key to the success of our trip to Jordan was Professor Gary Rollefson. With little or no background in archeology we learned more about archeology in twelve days than we had previously learned in our lifetimes. We witnessed unbelievable archeological digs and came away with a full understanding of how seemingly meaningless rock piles to the naked eye could explain much of the lives of earlier civilization. Cave dwellings taught us much as well about the early cave dwellers.
But the single most memorable site on our trip to us was not even Petra, the archeological sites or the Roman ruins. It was standing on a mountain top looking over the Jordan Valley in the very place where Moses once stood when he looked over the promised land that he would never live to go to. It made us remember how much of our own heritage was born in this desert land.
