Asia · Jordan

Jordan

Petra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea in eight days. Small group, one night under the stars in a Bedouin camp.

We visit Petra twice — once in the morning and again the next day. One visit is not enough. The site covers 264 square kilometres and most tours dispatch it in three hours: through the Siq, a photo of the Treasury, out. On our second day we climb to the Ad Deir Monastery, 850 steps, and at the top you are almost alone.

Wadi Rum is a desert of sandstone and granite where The Martian and Lawrence of Arabia were filmed. We ride in the back of a pick-up with Salem, a Bedouin driver who has lived there his whole life and knows where the three-thousand-year-old petroglyphs are. We sleep at a camp: the tents have beds, power until midnight and a shared shower. Dinner is cooked in a zarb, a pit in the sand covered with coals, and it takes four hours.

The Dead Sea is the last day. The surface sits 430 metres below sea level, the lowest land on Earth. The water is 34 % salt, so you cannot swim in it, only lie on it. Anyone with a fresh shaving nick finds that out within ten seconds. On the way home we stop at Jerash, a Roman city with a complete oval colonnade still standing. Jordan is a safe country and, despite its neighbours, a calm one to travel in; our route goes nowhere near the Israeli or Syrian borders. Breakfasts and dinners are included, lunches are on you and cost five to eight euros. We buy the Jordan Pass, which covers Petra entry and your visa, on your behalf in advance.

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