Jordan: Baptism Site

About 20 minutes north of the hotel was the site was Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Ben was at work so I just went to see the site by myself. 

Here I am at the site where it is claimed Jesus was baptized. The Jordan river no longer flows along the exact site, but they have built this area and marked the exact place which is between the large square stone on the left of the picture and another stone that you can barely see. It is believed that this was the site of the baptism because of some ancient temples that were discovered nearby, as well as other accounts. 

There are several churches that have been built near the site, but there are no congregations for them. Only the churches.

The pope visited the site recently with the King of Jordan. They made a mosaic of the visit and put it on the trail we walked on.

I was happy to just put my feet in the water. 

Oh hey Israel. You are so close yet so far away. The other side of the river Jordan is Israel and that side is much more built up. There were large groups of people singing, getting baptized, and praying with their religious leaders. There are several guards on the Israeli side, and our side had one guard to keep people from crossing I guess. The areas are fenced off so we could only go about half way across the river.

It was a really cool experience going to the River Jordan. They even had white doves flying around the area which added to the ambiance. It was nice to hear the people singing on the other side, and watch as people got baptized. All in all a pretty cool place to visit. 

That evening after going to the baptism site, I drove with Ben and his co-workers up to Amman for dinner. We went to a delicious sushi restaurant. I tried lemon mint, which is basically lemonade with chopped mint. It was very good but a little bit chewy. The sushi was phenomenal which I wasn't expecting for Amman.