We reluctantly left our beautiful nabataean village hotel, Taybet Zaman, this morning and were pleased to find a spot on the road to get a bird’s eye view of how it is laid out. We all found it a wonderful place to stay and thoroughly enjoyed our time in Petra.

Driving south we stopped at another place with a magnificent view of the rugged mountainous landscape of southern Jordan, and Rabi told us that there were many more siqs winding their way through them, apart from the one we had walked the previous day.

We passed by Wadi Rum, the famous location where the movie, Lawrence of Arabia, starring Peter P’Toole, was filmed in 1963. What a landscape, where for thousands of years, the bedouins have successfully lived and offered generous hospitality to visitors. We saw bedouin tents and passed herds of camels and goats on our journey south to the border of Jordan and the Red Sea.

We were only kilometres away from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel as we saw the northern end of the Red Sea before our eyes. The Jordanian city of Aqaba has been set aside as a special economic zone to encourage foreign investment, holiday makers and travellers to visit. The Red Sea has great diving and reefs with magnificently coloured fish. This was quite a surprise in this otherwise desolate and desert place. It was almost funny to see a boat on the side of the road as we headed closer to Aqaba. Boats and deserts are not usually seen together, but the sea wasn’t actually far away.

It was very sad to say goodbye to Rabi, who had a wonderful sense of humour and a great personality. He certainly responded well to Aussie humour and the inevitable ‘ribbing’. Thanks Rabi for a fantastic few days.

He guided us through the departure process and saw us across the Eilat border into Israel. There’s a section between the two countries [no-man’s land] where we have to walk a couple of hundred metres individually carrying and pulling our luggage over the bare concrete in the 40 degree heat. It was great to enter the air-conditioned Israeli security building, but our joy quickly disappeared as we each went through the rigorous security checks. The woman checking our passports took an incredibly long time looking at each photo and then gazing at us, looking back at the photo and back at us. The bag scans were also very intense with the majority of us having our bags unpacked and checked. We were at the end of the line and both our bags were opened, several items removed, and then the bags were kept open and rescanned. There were 3 checks we each went through – security check, passport check and customs check. The security check took so long we were very pleased that, as we moved to the next building, both the passport and customs checks were fairly routine. The rest of the group were waiting for us in the bus when we finally made it.

We met our Israeli guide, Erez, and we were on our way through southern Israel.

Our first stop was Timna Park where there is a replica of the tabernacle the Hebrews journeyed with throughout their 40 years of wilderness wandering following the Exodus from Egypt. It was interesting to see the proportions and covenant symbolism of the Old Covenant and how it parallels the wonders of Christ in the New Covenant. It was another time of us being so thankful to God for our salvation in Christ, as we reflected theologically on the truths of Scripture.

Our drive north continued through a landscape resembling the lunar surface and seemed inhabitable for humans. We passed a huge solar farm, date tree groves, some greenhouses watered through deep bores and as we approached the southern end of the Dead Sea we saw salt mountains and mineral factories making the most of the products of the Dead [Salt] Sea. Being so far below sea level the temperature was certainly soaring.

We arrived at our beautiful hotel on the shores of the Dead Sea, where they were so pleased to see us, as we’re the only tourist group here. The current political and military situation here in Israel, and indeed throughout the whole Middle East, has certainly affected the tourist world across the region. This hotel is so glad to see us that they are offering significant discounts on spa treatments and other offerings.

We had a lovely buffet meal in the restaurant following our group time together, and look forward to good sleep in comfortable beds.