Baptism Site

We headed down to the Baptism Site today. We got the audio guide, hopped on the bus, and started diligently listening to stop number one.

Sadly, several stops - John the Baptist's Spring and surrounding wilderness - were closed due to a lack of water making them ugly and unfit for tourists to view. But Susan dutifully listened through audio guide stop 14, as we made our way around the site, and was appropriately indoctrinated that the true baptism site is in Jordan..."these things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing" (John 1:28, emphasis added by the Jordanian Ministry of Tourism).

After seven previous visits, I'm pretty much an expert. But I did learn a few new things...for example, did you know that Christ's baptismal witnesses were a man and an angel who were riding dolphins? Or that Christ had a four-pack? I didn't either!

By the end, we were a little bored and, since we already knew we'd been cheated out of several stops on the tour, we decided to listen at random to the rest of the stops listed on the audio guide card (it goes through 30) to see whether we missed anything else or whether they just got ambitious in their numbering ("Someday, this will be the BapDisneyland Site and we'll have rides at the end!"). 

Turns out I was grossly cheated on all those previous trips. Although numbers 23 to 30 are being reserved for the future rides and Slushee stands, numbers 15 to 23 involve all kinds of exciting wonders including cave churches, the Rhotorius Monastery (which we initially thought was the much cooler Notorious Monastery), the ancient town of Saphsapha and Elijah's Hill. Lame.