Leaving Amman we headed down off the mountain plateau and into the rift valley between Jordan and Israel. Our first stop for a swim i the Dead Sea was within nearly spitting distance of the Isreali border, which was interesting. We could see the buildings of Jerusalem and even some black smoke at one stage. Had thought that the Dead Sea was wider across than it was! Floating in the Dead Sea was a strange experience. The water is crystal clear (also not expected – had thought that it would have been murky because of all the salt) so you can see the bottom, even when you are out in pretty deep water. It’s really hard work to move actually because you are so buoyant! The flies were a bit much down below sea level so we headed up into the cooler mountains again, south of the Dead Sea for lunch, on our way to Wadi Musa and Petra. The truck is really well equipped and we are eating very very well, although our stomachs are taking quite some time to settle down and get used to everything over here. This first week of our journey through Jordan there are just 11 of us, plus scott and our driver, Drew (from South Africa). There are Katherine and Walter from just north of Sydney, Mel from Brisbane, Ryan from Auckland (coming home from London), Javier from Mexico City, Joe and Robyn from Montana, Minesh from Dublin (but he’s actually English), and Ian from Cardiff.
Floating in the Dead Sea
Dead Sea
Our Truck
We spent two nights in Wadi Musa so we could spend a full day in Petra. Petra was awesome. Was pretty cool at first, walking in early morning and seeing the Treasury, but the real gems come the more you get off the beaten track and out exploring the surrounds. We had a guide for the first couple of hours who took us through the main areas, right through the cobbled roman street, then we left him and decided to explore as a whole group, which was pretty cool as we were all about he same fitness level and everyone was keen to do the same thing. We walked for about 7 or 8 hours, first up to the monastery, Al Deir, then back down and up to the High Place of Sacrifice in the afternoon, past the Roman Soldiers’ Tomb. Dave and I then went back and had a look at the royal Tombs, before finally heading back through the Siq and back to our accommodation. That evening after dinner, we went back down again for Petra By Night, which, although the candle lanterns were really neat, was a bit of a disappointment as there was no music, just some our of time and tune chanting. Think the flute player might have been sick and they suddenly had to improvise! It was a big day anyway so we were all pretty tired!
Petra
Wadi Musa
Heading south again we spent some time touring around Wadi Rum in 4wds, having fun trying to snowboard down the sand dunes, wandering amongst the impressive rock landscape, visiting an arch, canyon and Lawrence’s spring and house. We arrived into Aqaba for dinner and to catch the ferry across to Egypt. We started waiting for the ferry about 9.30 pm, got onboard about 11.45 pm, where we then got cabins and never felt the ferry leaving, arrived in Nuweiba about dawn and finally got to Dahab about lunchtime after waiting in the port for the various stages of immigration. That was apparently a reasonably fast ordeal – Johan, our new driver (also from South Africa) said that the first time he did it, the whole thing took him about 36 hours!
Wadi Rum
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