| Recommended days | 7 |
| Budget | ££ |
| Difficulty | Medium |
This was a tour around Jordan that we did in 2006 with Voyage Jules Verne. It was in the days both of rubbish photos and no notes so the narrative here is very light, think of it more as a photo album with comments!
Petra
We flew into Amman with Mum and Steve and were then taken to Petra for our first night. We visited the site and it was as awesome as expected. The erosion and colours of the sand stone was beautiful and even without the Nabatean buildings it would have been an incredible visit.
The walk through Al Siq and then being confronted with the Treasury was like reliving Indiana Jones. The Jordanian police here provided a colourful and welcome sense of security. I remember that we walked up to the Monastery and there was an obese German guy being taken up on a donkey that was struggling under his weight. The Arab donkey owner wanted double the price as the German weighed at least double a normal person and the German was arguing. Over a couple of quid.
I also remember I had just bought new boots and by the end of the day my socks were soaked with blood where they had been rubbing. I would say ‘live and learn’ but experience has taught me that I don’t! The highlight, both of this visit and of my life experiences to date, was seeing Petra illuminated by hundreds of candle at night. Truly memorable.
Little Petra
The next day we spent more time at Petra and also visited Little Petra, a kind of suberb of the main city. This was smaller but also far less crowded than Petra itself. Petra is actually a huge site, the famous Treasury being only a very small part of it and the Roman part of the city is impressive in its own right.
Mount Nebo
After the warmth of the desert (although not at night!) of Petra we headed into the mountains for a brief visit to Mount Nebo. This area overlooks the Jordan valley and is where Moses was said to have seen the Promised Land for the first time. The site now has the remains a 5th century Byzantine basilica with some gorgeous mosaics including a map of the known world at the time.
Dead Sea
We paused for a brief dip in the Dead Sea to experience the obligatory weirdness of floating in salt water. Actually, this may have been the day before, not too sure.
Kerak Castle
The main attraction, for us at least, on this day was the huge Crusader fortress at Kerak. Built on the site of a Byzantine fortress in the twelfth century it was expanded by the Mamluks and remodelled/looted by the Ottomans.
The castle was used as a base by Reynauld De Chatillon (he of the red beard in Kingdom of Heaven) to raid trade caravans in the Arabian desert. The castle was captured after the disaster at Hattin, Reynauld being justifiably executed in the aftermath of the battle.
Desert Castles
The next day involved another trip into the desert to visit the desert castles of Qusayr Amra, Qusayr al Azraq and Qusayr Kharaneh. These were built during the Umayyad period and ranged from small forts to fortified caravanserais in their useage. One had some amazing early Islamic frescoes that showed a heavy Byzantine influence and were before the prohibition on human faces.
One of the castles was used by Lawrence of Arabia as a base during his attacks on the Ottomans and they were all remarkable outposts in a harsh and barren environment.
Jerash
We continued our tour around Jordan with a visit to Jerash, pausing just long enough for lunch to miss the chariot display in the Roman hippodrome, something that still grates today! Jerash is a very well preserved Roman city with temples, forum, gates and collonaded streets. It was very much a case of ‘wander around’ though as there were no signs and this was pre-Google map days!
Amman
We returned to Amman ready for the long drive to the coast at Aqaba. There were several Roman sites in the city that we visited including the compulsory theatre. After the openness and sterility of the desert though, the city seemed dirty, crowded and urban so it was difficult to appreciate the ruins in isolation.
Aqaba
The next day we drove to Aqaba, Jordan’s port on the Red Sea and the day was ‘at leisure’. It was nice to be by the sea and we enjoyed the typical tourist pursuits of the town, including a ‘Yellow Submarine‘ trip to see the fish life and coral nearby.
Wadi Rum
The main reason for visiting Aqaba though was to leave it the next afternoon to go to Wadi Rum for a jeep safari followed by watching the desert sunset. This sounds romantic but the jeep safari involved sitting on wooden seats in the back of 1950’s 4*4’s driven by twelve year olds. The novelty war off quickly! The sunset was spectacular though and my second favourite memory of this trip, after Petra illuminated at night.
That was the end of our tour around Jordan. A fantastic place, full of incredible history and natural wonders and the right balance of cultural change. You were obviously somewhere different to Western Europe but it wasn’t too alien. Obviously, being driven everywhere on a tour helped! I liked it so much I visited a few years later with the kids.
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