An early start meant the joy of seeing the Petra mountains in cool and creamy light. We once again passed the white spot which signified the hilltop dedicated to Aaron. We found the first part of our journey familiar, the same tethered white pony to the side of the Kings Highway, but then we took a left turn and began to drop through the mountains. We are becoming accustomed to spectacular scenery. We wove through and dropped more than 3000 feet to reach the Dead Sea coast road and then followed the Sea right along to it’s northern shore.

Along the way Zaid told us of the five pillars of Islam – that there is only one God, prayer , that is the regular five times a day prayer, Ramaddan, the Haj and the giving of 2.5% of income to charity. Throughout his comprehensive answers to our questions on Islam, and indeed throughout his time with us, Zaid has been careful to avoid almost any mention of Israel and the Jews and Palestinians a few miles away. Of course he knows we are shortly to cross the border, but his care and sensitivity towards our faith and others while explaining his own, have been exemplary. He mentioned that a mosque is only a place of prayer and that the immam leads the prayers, which change in number for God and for Muhammad each prayer time. He said that a Muslim can pray anywhere, not only a mosque, though the genders are separated, so if there was no mosque, a church was also the house of God and could be used for Islamic prayer , just as Christians could pray to God in a mosque. Children start to observe the daylight fast for Ramaddan from around the age of 12, with girls wearing the headscarf from the same age, although we saw younger girls with the scarf – which may be functional as we saw them out in the hot sun. When asked about differences between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims Zaid suggested the differences were tradition and political rather than anything to do with faith. Thus we drove safely to the Allenby crossing (King Hossein bridge) after also watching a short film made with the present King Abdullah. Zaid showed great patience dealing with the passport formalities at the crossing and we were through the Jordanian side in half an hour. At that point we crossed by coach and spent a little longer getting through the border control on West Bank side. A new coach and a new guide – a Palestinian Christian born in Jerusalem- took us past Bethany on the West bank of the Jordan and into Jericho for long awaited lunch.