A Jordanian Adventure
Jordan, specifically Petra, has been on my travel wish-list for a while, but I never thought I would actually get to go! However, I was then lucky enough, from the 9th-15th of October to be invited out to the country, and hosted, by the Jordanian Tourism Board. I was one of four representatives from the sector, alongside Sharon (Equity), Sharon (Camps International) and Tash (Winchmore school).
We all met at Heathrow on the afternoon of the 9th, and flew out on our Royal Jordanian flight, landing in Amman just before midnight local time. We were met by representatives from the Tourism Board who fast-tracked us through the visa process, helped us with our luggage, and introduced us to our guide for our tour – Basel.
We got our SIM cards sorted for our phones (to avoid data roaming fees) and then met our driver, Nadir, and departed for our Amman hotel.
Figure 1: Our Little Group – Tash, Me, Sharon C, Sharon P (left to right)
Arriving at the House Boutique hotel, it took a little while for the adrenaline and excitement to wear off, so I wasn’t asleep much before half past two in the morning. We met at nine-thirty for breakfast the next day, and the choice was a bit overwhelming, there was so much to choose from on the buffet, a lot of which wouldn’t seem out of place on a lunch time mezze table, which was quite interesting to mix in with pastries and fruit.
Figure 2: House Boutique Hotel’s Pastry Selection
The first visit of our trip was to Jerash, the Roman site just shy of an hour north of Amman. The first glimpse you get of the site is the Arch of Hadrian as you approach on the road. Once parked up and with tickets collected, we were then taken through a small souq-like area (also where the toilets are) before emerging at the path leading up to the Arch of Hadrian, the colossal, triple-arched gateway that was built in honour of the emperor’s visit to the city of Gerasa in AD 129-130. Beyond this monumental arch is the hippodrome and then you go through the southern gate, past the path up to
Figure 3: The Arch of Hadrian
the Temple of Zeus and the Southern Theatre, to reach the most famous part of the site; the Oval Plaza. One of Jerash’s nicknames is the City of a Thousand Columns, and starting in this plaza it is easy to see why. As we followed the southern cardo maximus past the archaeological museum, columns topped with capitals line the street, and still stand over most of the monuments across the site, visible in the distance.
We weren’t able to have too long at the site, as we had our lunch plans and the Amman Citadel and Underground Tour to do, so we continued past the Macellum, South Tetrakionion, Cathedral, the Nymphaeum, and the Propylaeum of the Sanctuary of Artemis before we turned off to visit the North Theatre. The North Theatre, also know as an Odium, is smaller than the South Theatre, which means it was more likely used for poetry and musical performances rather than theatrical shows. It was built in the 2nd Century AD before having works done in the 3rd Century AD.
The view from the upper seats was quite something, and the detail of aulos-player reliefs in at the ends of the cavea is a nice little touch to keep an eye out for! After spending some time here, we continued on to the north Tetrapylon and the then the northern gate (also known as the Damascus Gate).
Figure 4: Jerash’s North Theatre
We hopped back into the minivan and then we were off to Beit Khairat Souf which is a kitchen and restaurant, owned and run by women, employing 25 from the local area. While this wasn’t yet our lunch stop, we did have a go at making the spice mix for the local bread speciality; manakish with the staff, getting to portion up our own bags of the spices.
Figure 5: The spices at Beit Khairat Souf
Once we had finished our spice mix and done a little shopping for their home-made sauces and jams, we were back on the road heading to lunch at Dar Ne’meh Souf. Dar Ne’meh is another local community project, backed by the Princess Taghrid Institute for Development and Training, the project’s goal is to allow women with home based businesses to generate sustainable incomes. They have several branches throughout Jordan that include a small shop full of hand-crafted goods alongside the
Figure 6: Lunch at Dar Ne’meh Souf
kitchen and café space. Lunch was a very filling chicken and rice dish, one of the local delicacies, alongside a lot of salad and side dishes. This became the trend for the whole trip! Can’t fault their portion sizes or hospitality!
Arriving in Amman we headed straight up to the Citadel, the ancient heart of the city, where you can find layers upon layers of history, from the earliest bronze age caves, through the Roman period with the Temple of Hercules, Byzantine buildings including Churches and villas, and several Umayyad period remains, like the mosque, and palace. You can easily spend a couple of hours up here, walking around the sites and admiring the views over Amman (including looking down on the Roman Theatre).
We got a quick look inside the Jordan Archaeological Museum before heading down to meet our guide for the Underground Tour. We thought perhaps we were literally going underground, but instead we had a tour of key pieces of street art, right in the centre of the city! Turns out there’s a fairly big street art culture in Amman, and about 70% of street artists in the city are women! We learnt about certain artists signatures, such as a robot face or a paper boat. We got to try a couple of local desserts and different flavours of honey before the end of the tour and heading out for dinner at Sufra.
Figure 7: One of the pieces of street art in Amman
Dinner, just like lunch before it, and every meal for the rest of the trip, was huge! Plates and bowls full of salads, dips and small bites came out alongside the bread – Tabbouleh, Fattoush, Falafel, Hummus, Moutabal, chopped fresh tomatoes, fried cheese, to name just a few. Then came the mains – a chicken and rice option, or a potato and meat dish in a creamy sauce. Pudding was an ice cream alongside a scoop of candyfloss.
It was an early start the next day, but on-one was grumbling as we were off to Petra! As we drove south, you could see just how much the natural geography of the country changed, from Amman a built up city nestled on hills with green spaces, to flat, dry desert for a lot of the journey, then as we approached Wadi Musa, the large cliff and rock formations appeared and began to dominate our view of the landscape from the minivan windows. We briefly stopped to see the Paradise bakery on the outskirts of Amman to pick up some bread and biscuit sort of snacks, it was certainly interesting to see the variety and range of products you could pick up there, as well as being able to see the baking process and production line in the back corner.
Back on the road, our rest stop came at a roadside bazaar, where they had restrooms, a large shopping section, as well as a café/diner for food and drink. These are the sorts of locations we would encourage groups to think about stopping at for rest breaks. Just before reaching Wadi Musa we stopped looking down towards the valley where Petra sat amongst the rock formations and took some photographs before arriving and heading into the site.
Going past the museum you then enter a large square, with toilets on the right, the visitor centre on your left, and a souq for shopping, with eateries mixed in. There was an option to take (6 seater) golf carts from just outside the visitor centre down to the end of the Siq to then walk the last part, so we did that.
We were allowed to stop a few times on the way down at the Djinn Blocks, Obelisk Tomb and the Bab as-Siq Triclinium, as well as at several points once we entered the Siq, like the remains of the relief of a camel. At one point whilst we stopped and were looking around, I was laughing to myself in bewilderment of actually being there. Once we’d got about three quarters of the way to the end of the Siq, we left the golf cart,
Basel turned us around by claiming there was an eagle’s nest up high back the way we’d came before spinning us round for the reveal of the Treasury through the end of the Siq. That magical, marvellous view. Nothing quite prepares you for it, and it just astounds you to see it in person, no matter how many times you’ve seen it in films or TV shows. Given the recent issues in the neighbouring countries it was also fairly empty compared to what you would expect it to be like there.
Figure 8: First glimpse of the Treasury through the Siq
We spent some time in the area of the Treasury, but didn’t get to go any further, which I am so gutted about, but I knew it was for good reason – we had to get to Wadi Rum to do the activities there. However, Basel did introduce us to his friend who takes photos for visitors. We paid about 25 dinar to get about 50 photos and 4 videos in total, a mix of group shots and individual photos. After this we took a golf cart back up to the entrance, bought a shemagh/keffiyeh each and then had a quick whip around the museum where I managed to get quite a few photos and a guidebook for Jordan’s historic sites. Lunch was next, at the Mövenpick hotel opposite the site entrance, we had the usual salad and dip starters followed by a lovely salmon and vegetable main.
Finishing lunch, we hopped straight back into the minivan and were off to Wadi-Rum, the journey was around an hour and 45 minutes and included a stop at the Lawrence of Arabia train that the Jordan Heritage Revival Company use for their 1916 Arab Revolt reenactment. We met with the jeep driver and hopped into the back for the 4×4 desert drive, it was rather bumpy, but the landscape was something else, we were really starting to get that Mars-like feeling, with all the red rocks and sand. After about 25 minutes we stopped for our next mode of transport – Camel! This was a method of transport I was a little hesitant about, and it wasn’t the most comfortable experience, but what an experience it was to ride a camel through the desert! You need thighs of steel though, and make sure you pull your legs out of the way before your camel bumps into another, we ended up crashing into a larger group and Tash had a rather large bruise on her leg where it got pinned between her camel’s seat and another camel.
We made it to the Bedouin camp, had some herb tea and then got back in the 4×4 to reach the spot at which we would watch the sunset, which was another amazing experience! It really hits home how, except for the occasional 4×4 going past and the clusters of camps scattered around, that this would have been the same sunset view that the Nabataeans would have had 2000 years ago as they made their way through Wadi-Rum.
Figure 10: Wadi-Rum sunset
Figure 9: Camel riding through Wadi-Rum
Once the sun had set below the horizon we were back in the 4×4 heading to the Sun City Camp where we would spend the night. Our accommodation were the Martian domes, situated on the edge of the camp, looking across the desert. Dinner was a Bedouin special, where they had cooked the meat and veg in underground chambers for hours before bringing it up in a small ceremony and taking into the larger dome to then serve alongside a large buffet.
There was also a local dance performance by the campfire, which we avoided taking part in, before we then got to relax for a bit until it got dark enough for us to go and take part in the stargazing with the RumSky company. The four of us were part of a much larger group that was split in two, one group went to do some naked eye stargazing whilst we got to use telescopes to see Saturn, the star Veiga, and the Pleiades. The telescopes were incredible, you could
Figure 11: The moon over the desert
see the ring around Saturn, Veiga was shining bright as a diamond and the Pleiades were so clear, swapping over to naked eye gazing, we discussed the north star, using Cassiopeia constellation to find it, and talked about Aquila and other constellations before coming back to be one big group and watched the moonrise over the cliffs. The telescopes were so powerful we could see the heat lines on the moon as the light from the sun reflected off its’ surface.
Returning to our camp, we retired to bed, Tash and Sharon intended to wake up early for the sunrise, and while I wasn’t intending to get up that early, I left the curtains of my done open so that I could see the stars, and it was plenty dark enough, given the lack of light pollution, my done was facing just the right way for me to be able to see Cassiopeia as I fell asleep.
Figure 12: The view from my dome room, with Cassiopeia visible
Over dinner we had discussed how it seemed like we’d done so much within two days, and it was true, this was very much whistlestop, but in the best way, these first two days had gone at a steady pace, but the rest of the trip flew by!
Despite not intending to join Sharon and Tash to watch the sunrise on day 3, not closing my blinds meant I was awake at about 6:45, just in time to see the sun come up over the cliffs across the desert from our domes, as well as spot the two hot air balloons go past. After breakfast and packing we had two camps to check out – Hasan Zawadieh Camp and Captain’s Camp. The latter of which was owned by the same family that owned the restaurant and hotel we had dinner at that evening (more on that later).
Both camps ticked a lot of boxes for us all, and we were subject to the wonderful hospitality of the locals, being fed dates and sweet biscuits, offered herbal tea and cardamon coffee whilst we looked around. We were all fans of the cave rooms at the Captain’s Camp, complete with hatch in the ceiling to stargaze through!
Figure 13: SeaTrek Aqaba
Climbing back in the minivan, we headed off to Aqaba, Jordan’s only piece of coastal city, and the countries access to the Red Sea. A shorter drive of about an hour, we headed straight to the Royal Diving Club (after a brief bit of redirecting due to road closures on the approach and some unclear road signs). We thought we’d just be doing some snorkelling, but we were given the opportunity to do a Sea Trek, using bubble helmets, so of course we all said yes! After receiving a safety talk and getting changed into
wetsuits and swim shoes, we were walked to the end of the pier and one at a time descended down the stairs where we stopped whilst the helmets were connected to the oxygen tubes and then placed over our heads, before the diver then escorted down the rest of the steps to the seafloor. Then, having equalised our ears, we had a handrail to follow as we moved along the sand past a coral reef teeming with fish. The drop off from the level we were at to where the diver was taking photos from was quite something! At one point some larger fish did pop up from the depths to have a brief swim before returning into the darker blue. This is something I never thought I would do, and certainly won’t forget doing, what an experience!
After surfacing and drying off we headed into central Aqaba for lunch at the Ara Revolt Plaza, with it’s 130m tall flagpole. We ate lunch at Mirwas, and when offered, chose the local speciality fish option; Sayadieh. We thought, as we had had meat for dinner and lunch so far, a fish dish would be best. It was delicious, and just as filling as every other meal we’d had so far. It was such a large piece of fish, it probably didn’t need all the usual starters, but we ate them all anyway! Hungry work, trekking along the seafloor!
Figure 14: Sayadieh – baked fish with rice and almonds
We were then off to our Hotel, the Hyatt Regency Aqaba, the hotel that has since ruined all other hotels for me (except maybe where we stayed at the Dead Sea). It was huge, it was very fancy, and it was amazing! We had some free time before dinner and some evening hotel inspections, so we took full advantage of the hotel.
We met down at the private beach to discuss everything so far and have a bit of a swim, tried out the swim-up bar in the pool, and relaxed before heading back to change into our evening wear. Meeting Basim and Abdullah at the front desk we headed first to the Oryx hotel for an inspection, a 4 star hotel, used to hosting sports and e-sports teams it could be good for groups if they happen to be in Aqaba.
Hopping back in the minivan we headed to the Sharif Hussein’s House Museum where we learnt all about the Arab Revolt with the Jordanian Heritage Revival Company, seeing weapons, letters, and clothing from the period. Then it was over to the Captain’s Restaurant for dinner.
After a second round of salad and Sayadieh for dinner, we had a brief inspection of the Captain’s Hotel, a 3 star hotel that would be great for groups staying in Aqaba. The restaurant allows for HB, there’s a separate diner for groups at breakfast, it’s all been refitted recently so is modern and up to date, and the on-site pool meets all STF standards. After that it was back to the hotel to pack and sleep ahead of the journey to the Dead Seas on day 4…