Week 30 and 31
Aqaba
The Eliat/Aqaba border crossing was the most easiest and quietest border crossing we have experienced so far on our trip. We were literally the only people lining up to get our free 30 day visa!
We stayed in Jordan for just under 2 weeks. When we first arrived, we knew instantly that this country was very different to Israel. It was very obvious that Islam was the country's chosen religion and we enjoyed the Arabic atmosphere in the places we visited. There were lots of camels wondering around some of the landscapes and even some in the first town we visited ... Aqaba.
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| Spot the camel! |
Aqaba is celebrated as Jordan's only Red Sea beach resort with tax free shopping and a visit here is highly recommended by Jordanians. Unfortunately we have both been spoilt by experiencing other beautiful parts of the world and so it was hard to get excited about this town. 1 day here was enough and we couldn't wait to leave.
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| View from hotel window! |
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| The only nice building in Aqaba! |
Realising that the beach in Aqaba isn't really a good place to bathe, as a tall blond tourist, we made our way to South Beach (12km south of Auaba) in a shared pick up truck and paid to enter a tourist beach club (15JOD each) which had various pools, a pool bar and a private part of the gravelly beach. This would have been a great idea if I had remembered to pack a swimming costume! I basically paid £15 to sit on a sun bed!
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| South Beach (not well maintained!) |
Wadi Rum
Wadi Rum is one of the highlights in Jordan. It is a beautiful expanse of desert scenery with unusual looking sand stone mountains and outcrops. It has been appointed as a UNESCO world heritage site due to its varied desert landscapes consisting of a range of narrow gorges, natural arches, towering cliffs and caverns. Archaeological remains found here suggest that people first inhabited this area approximately 12,000 years ago!
We arranged our 2 day 2 night adventure directly with Bedouin expedition (120 JOD each) via email and asked them to arrange a taxi to take us to Wadi Rum village first thing in the morning (20JOD). It took just over 1 hour to get there from Aqaba.
Day 1 was spent ridding a camel for 4 hours to the Bedouin camp where we slept for 2 nights. This was a great way to see the desert close up but 4 hours riding on a camel resulted in a very numb bum! We both could not wait to get off the camels and enjoy a nice sugary cup of tea.
Day 2. We spent 6 hours in a jeep discovering other areas of the desert and climbing up the sandstone cliffs. The landscape was utterly beautiful - my pictures really do not capture what our eyes saw but they can give you an idea.
On the way back to the camp we stopped off at a large sand dune so that I could try a spot of sand boarding!
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| Woo hoo! |
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| Natural arch |
The camp provided breakfast and dinner in a traditional Bedouin style tent. Each night we had a chicken dish which was cooked in the sand.
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| This was our tent. |
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| Bedouin Prince .. |
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| ... and his jester! |
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| Preparing the 'oven' |
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| Preparing to remove the cooked chicken! |
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| Ta Daaaaa! |
The location of the camp was perfect to watch the sun going down.
Wadi Musa - Petra and Little Petra
Bedouin Expeditions arranged a minibus to take us to Wadi Musa (Moses valley). This is the town closest to Petra and many tour companies and hotels are based here to cater for the thousands of tourists wanting to visit Petra.
We spent 3 days and 3 nights here which is the perfect amount of time to visit Petra and Little Petra. We stayed at Petra By Night and can not recommend this place enough! The 2 guys running the place are very hospitable and arranged all the activities for us.
Day 1. We arrived at Wadi Musa early in the afternoon and decided to go and visit little Petra which was only a 30 minutes ride away in a taxi (25JOD). This was a perfect introduction into what we could expect to see over the next few days at Petra. This site is quite small and you can visit it all in about 30 minutes.
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| Only pained ceiling mosaic discovered! |
The guys at Petra By Night offer an evening meal each day which is cooked by a local Bedouin lady. One of my favourite dishes they made was called 'upside down' . Basically it is a dish which has rice chicken potatoes and aubergine cooked all at the same time and in the same pot with various spices. The whole pot is the emptied onto a plate for everyone to help themselves. It was delicious!!
Day 2. Happy Birthday Roland! What a great way to celebrate your birthday - visiting Petra!. We woke up at 5:30am so that we could be one of the first people to enter the site and watch the sun rise. Didn't quite make the sunrise as our guide was 30 minutes late!
Petra is massive! Many people only come here for only one day but I really believe that you need 2 days here to really take it all in. We walked non stop for about 6 hours following the main trekking route from the entry gate through to the Monastery and back again.
The Treasury and the Monastery were the most spectacular structures. It was really quite unbelievable to know that they been carved directly out of the sandstone mountains thousands of years ago!
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| Getting married again - Petra style! |
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| Look at the colours in the sandstone! |
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| This man met Obama! |
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| The old Treasury |
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| Inside the court house |
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| The Monastery |
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| Stunning!! |
We were absolutely knackered by the time we got back to the hotel and after we ate dinner we relaxed in our bedroom until we heard a knock at our door.
'Can you please come up stairs'
Roland and I followed the hotel owners up the stairs and were welcomed by a clapping Arabs dancing around a birthday cake to a happy birthday rap song. The look of complete surprise on Roland's face was worth a million dollars! I laughed a lot!
Day 3. We made it down to Petra at a later time of 11am and this time visited the area which is not often explored by tourists. Once you climbed up to the High Place Of Sacrifice the rest of the walk was a pleasant downhill.
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| The Siq - main road to the Treasury |
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| The Treasury |
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| How many tombs can you see? Lots!!! |
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| Remains of a sculpted lion |
Madaba
We were feeling a little extravagant when we decided to take a taxi all the way from Petra to Madaba (95JOD). This was a 7 hour trip covering over 250km in total. We travelled along the King's Highway stopping off at various sites along the way to take photos or explore old castles.
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| Our taxi driver - Haroon |
We stayed at Madaba for 2 nights which was enough time to visit the various places of interest. We stayed at The Salome Hotel which was a 15 minute walk from the town centre and a cheap and great place to stay.
Madaba is located in a biblical area with Mount Nebo being a key place of interest for visiting pilgrims.
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| Church on Mount Nebo |
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| Ancient mosaic at Mount Nebo |
It is also famed for its mosaics, both modern and ancient. Some of the ancient sites we visited had mosaics which were almost 1300 years old!
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| St George's Church |
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| Old mosaic showing map of the holy land |
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| Being shown how to make a mosaic |
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| This dinner was delicious |
Amman
Amman, Jordan's capital city and our last stop in the middle east. Again we took a taxi from Madaba to our hotel and stayed here for 2 nights. I enjoyed Amman a lot more than I expected. It was a lot cleaner and less hectic than I imagined, with lots of nice places to drink and eat. We spent our first day here following the main tourist walking route visiting the Citadel (ancient fort), eating at the king's favorite restaurant and sipping strong coffee at numerous cafes.
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| Roman amphitheater |
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| Ruins at the Citadel |
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| View of Amman from the Citadel |
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| Eating the Kings favorite food |
On our second and last day, we took at taxi to the neighboring city of Jerash to visit the most famous Jordanian Roman ruins. It took 2 hours in total to visit the impressive site.
