Madaba, Jordan

On a recent trip to Jordan, my traveling mate, Katie, and I started our adventure off in Madaba. About a 30-minute drive from the Queen Alia International Airport, it's a smaller, more manageable town than Amman. We stayed at the Mosaic City Hotel for JD47 a night for a double room. The hotel was updated and clean with a good breakfast and helpful staff. Free wifi was offered, but barely worked (you will see this recurring theme through my other blog entries about Jordan and Israel).

The main sights in Madaba, including the mosaic map at St. George's Church (JD1), the Madaba Archeological Parks (JD2), and the Shrine of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist (JD1), can be seen within one day. A special note about St. John's: I feel as though it was worth more than the JD1 entrance fee. The church offers an interesting photo gallery in the visitors' center, a bell tower climb, and a self-guided tour of the 3,000-year-old ruins under the church. Unlike at other sights we visited, the gentleman staffing St. John's was enthusiastic about their offerings and was willing to chat and answer questions. Most sights in Madaba close around 5 p.m., so it's best to start early in the day.

We didn't inquire about entering the mosques in town since none were advertised as sights to see.

We ate at Haret Jdoudna (http://haretjdoudna.com/) twice in the three days we spent in Madaba. The restaurant is in an old home and also has a handicraft market. I was pleasantly surprised at its authentic and delicious local dishes after seeing that it was rated #1 on TripAdvisor (I'm usually disappointed with the restaurants that make it to the top of TripAdvisor lists). The crowd was a good mix of tourists and locals. A very filling lunch or dinner cost about JD10 per person. 

Haret Jdoudna restaurant

We also stopped in Cafe Ayola. and, while the food was good and cheap (about JD5 per meal), the food options and condiments were very Westernized (think hot dogs, barbecue sauce, and ranch dressing all on the same plate).

Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico

We visited the ruins and were pleasantly surprised at how well preserved and expansive they were. We were also surprised that we were allowed to climb up most of the ruins. 

The cost to get in is nominal but know that outside of the ruins, everything gets pretty expensive compared to the other areas of Chiapas we visited. In the restaurants near the hotel area of town, entrees start at around $100 MXN. We stayed at the Chablis Hotel which was fine but at $60 USD a night, it was standard for the area but still more than I would have liked to spend. We ate in the gringo area a few times but also went into town across the bridge and ate at some of the small restaurants there. They were much less expensive, about $12 MXN per taco.

If I were to retake this trip and were on an even tighter budget, I would have taken one of the tours from San Cristobal to Palenque to see the ruins and visit Miso-Ha and Aqua Azul in one day. We took the bus from San Cristobal to Palenque for $112 MXN, then took a colectivo to and from the ruins for a total of $80 MXN, the two entrance fees for the ruins (one for the park, one for the ruins) for $87 MXN, a tour that took us to Misol-Ha and Aqual Azul for $150 MXN, and finally the bus ticket back to San Cristobal for $176 MXN. So all of this comes out to $605 MXN per person. There were tours from San Cristobal that included Palenque, Miso-Ha, and Aqual Azul for $450-600 MXN. I think by staying in Palenque for three nights (so that we would have two full days to visit the ruins and the waterfalls), we actually spent more money than if we would have just crammed it all into one day. But at least we could take our time at the ruins and have time to relax. I guess that's the trade off.

Misol-Ha waterfall

Agua Azul waterfall