Pella. I suspect that you have never heard of it, unless by some chance you are a history nut and know about the Decapolis. And to be fair, compared with sites like Jerash, there really isn’t that much to see. But like so much of Jordan, it is living history, not sterile “carefully packed away in a museum” history. The afternoon we visited Pella we were running late, so we couldn’t stay long. Dinner at Khalid’s was waiting, with plates of wonderful food and more Arak than it would be wise to drink. But we did have time for a brief stop. It was clear that we were pretty much the only ones there for a quick stop. The site was crowded (by Jordanian standards) but it looked more like an afternoon picnic than an archeology site. But I’m fine with that – history is for the living.

And of course, in the background, we could see the Bedouin, bringing their sheep in for the evening. It made an interesting backdrop to the scene as they crossed the ruins of Pella.

My favorite thing about this picture is that you can clearly see the Mariaa – the male sheep that has been bonded with the donkey, and therefore follows everywhere it goes. The Mariaa has a bell around his neck, and all the other sheep follow the sound of the bell and therefore follow the shepherd, who is riding the donkey. I wrote more about this in a previous post here https://ifitwastoday.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/not-what-it-seems/