gregoryjenks

Tag: Petra

  • Jordan 2014 – Day Three

    Today saw us move from the rugged mountains of Petra, through the austere desert landscape of the Wadi Rum, to the seaside resort of Aqaba. Quite a set of transitions.

    We began in the beautiful grounds of Beit Zaman as we boarded the bus for another day of exploring this southern desert of Jordan.

    140623 Bus

     

    After an hour or so of driving we entered Wadi Rum and prepared to board the jeeps for adventures that required no walking – well, almost no walking.

     

    After a while we stopped at a Bedouin camp where we were offered traditional hospitality, met some of the locals, and played a trick on the other tour members by having Clare arrive in full burka as the wife of a local Bedouin looking for some lost sheep.

     

    It was a delight to see his face when I walked up to him and introduced myself in Arabic: Ana baba. Hiya binti. (I am the father. She is my daughter.) He spoke no English, but I had enough Arabic to negotiate a reasonable price (30 camels), much to the amusement of the Bedouin who enjoyed our sustained joke at the expense of our travel companions. To raise the stakes even further, our guide (Sam/Suliman) suddenly “noticed” that Clare was missing, and asked if anyone knew where she was. I replied in Arabic, Barafesh (I don’t know), which deepened the fun for both the Bedouin and the guide. When Clare finally removed her head covering, there was surprise and relief – and a sense of having been fooled.

     

    We stopped at the hideaway where Lawrence of Arabia met with Arab leaders during WW1, and crossed the old Ottoman railway line he encouraged them to blow up repeatedly.

     

    Finally we  enjoyed a 4 jeep race back to the Visitor Centre, the last few minutes of which were captured on video.

    After lunch at the Visitor Centre we got back on our bus for the shot trip to Aqaba, where we checked into our very comfortable Radisson Blu hotel resort.

     

  • Jordan 2014 – Day Two

    Today was spent exploring the ancient Nabatean city of Petra. We spent from 9.00am to 5.00pm enjoying the sights and sounds of Petra, and were there long enough to some of the famous changes in the colour of rock as the hours clicked by. These few photographs below cannot do justice to the experience, but they may provide some sense of our day.

    We began by walking through the Siq, a natural channel through the rocks.

     

    Finally we reached the end of the Siq and caught our first glimpse of the Khazneh, or (misnamed) Treasury.


     

    Just so you know I really was there, here is a picture taken by Clare:

     

    This panorama shows the ancient theatre that was carved out of the natural rock, with some of the less ornamental caves nearby.

     

    After lunch I took a camel back to the Khazneh from our restaurant deep inside the rock-walled basin. The world looks different from up here and especially when the handler gives me the single rope that serves for a rein, and moves to the rear. (I had no spare hands for a camera after that!)

     

    Finally we returned to our delightful accommodation at Beit Zaman.

     

     

     

  • Jordan 2014 – Day One

    Today (Saturday) we said goodbye to Hakuk Balev as we left Galilee to begin our few days of travelling in Jordan. The crossing from Israel to Jordan was uneventful, but we still seemed to spend an unnecessarily long time in front of this sign while waiting to board the shuttle bus that takes people across the Sheik Hussein Bridge.

     

    We then headed south along the eastern side of the Jordan River, through a series of Jordanian villages.

    After driving south for about two hours we met up with the other nine people joining us for this next stage, and then went to Madaba where we visited the church with its ancient map of the Holy Land, including the earliest map of Jerusalem.

    From there we went to Mt Nebo to overlook the promised land, while our guide (Sam) provided a good introduction to the land and the history of this place.

    After visiting a nearby sheltered workshop where beautiful handcrafts are made and sold, we headed south. The drive to Petra required another three and a half hours driving, and took us deep into the desert.

    Finally we arrived at our hotel were we will spend two nights: Beit Zaman. This is an authentic local village that was turned into a very nice resort, while the population used the income to build a new village nearby with more modern amenities. In any case, this is a delightful place to stay.

     

     

     

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