Jordan
Travel Blogs from Jordan
Day 20: Hiking in Burbeita & Afra Canyons
... spent sixteen years. We learned during the day that Ali specializes in guiding in the canyons in this section of Jordan. We consider ourselves really fortunate to have had this experience with him! We pay our departure tax and have the ...
Crossing into Jordan
... taxi drivers do that here in hopes of getting a commission, which will be added to your bill, of course. Jordan is a constitutional monarchy with a democratically elected government. Following the death of King Hussein in 1999, his son, King Abdullah ...
Petra and the Last Crusade
... had been a sand storm and there was a lot of sand in the air. It was also freezing cold. I had never anticipated that Jordan would be cold. I had only packed a day pack to last me about four days and stupidly I had not packed any warm clothes. ...
Successfully sneaking into a citadel
... , and then getting quite easily stamped in. Good fun. We met with our Jordanian guide, which is mandatory for travelers in Jordan. They frown highly upon independent or group travel in Jordan without a guide, so it makes it easier for everyone if you just ...
Peter O'Toole Can Kiss My Ass
... seen at least a fleeting image of its glorious desertscapes either on television or the silver screen. It is yet another location in Jordan recognizable to moviegoers around the world. A man by the name of T. E. Lawrence spent some time in a desert here ...
The Colours of the Desert
... some concern re: degradation of the landscape with trucks driving all over the place damaging the desert vegetation.) I understand that Jordan has some of the most advanced environmental policies in the Middle East. We found a ride to the government ...
Floating around in the Dead Sea
... so many fast food places like the usual Maccas, KFC, Pizza Hut and numerous other American takeaways throughout the city. Jordan has close ties with America which is demonstrated not only in the plethora of fast food but also in their American made ...
The Not for Profit Hotel
I curled a lip to the tatty decor and thanking the owner I informed him I'd be looking elsewhere. He lowered the price. He lowered it again as my feet were pointing to the door but I thanked him and said I'd return if I didn't see anything else I liked. ...
Petra-Fied
It's a shame really that most Westerner's sole knowledge of Petra, the former capital of the Kingdom of Nabataea, founded in 312 BCE is that the first Indiana Jones movie was filmed there. Petra was once one of the most important cities in the region, ...
Jordan - Edamame's quest for the holy grail
... impressive thing about Petra is that it's made up of palaces, temples, and tombs...all carved from rock!! Ending our trip in Jordan was a desert excursion, which of course meant another camel ride! To mix things up a bit we also went on a ...
Soldiers and Wildflowers in the Decapolis
... of Yankee Doodle Dandy. The friendly voice came from Tom, one of a group of American soldiers on a training in Jordan. They were learning about Middle Eastern culture, so that if they were deployed or redeployed in Iraq, they would understand ...
Rock City!
Say it in your best Sean Connery voice. Rock City. Rock City. Good stuff. After a 3 hour transfer from Amman, we arrive in Wadi Musa. Wadi Musa is the town built beside Petra, one of the 7 wonders. Petra is the reason I am here. By 11am, I am walking in ...
The land of Laurence of Arabia!
We had a jeep tour when we arrived in Wadi Rum and skidded around the sand dunes and went to all of the 'it' places for pictures. The culmination of the ride being a huge increase in the speed of our jeeps and what looked like a sand dune cliff up ...
Indiana Jones, Lionel Richie and Red Sea 'R and R'
... -el-Sheikh, jumping in a minibus we made our way at maniacal speed through an amazing arid jaggard mountain landscape to Newieba where the Jordan ferry leaves from (we would have asked the driver to slow down but we were keen to get away from the package ...
Solace in the Arabian Desert
Fan-tailed Raven soared overhead in the hot dry air of a red sandstone canyon of Wadi Rum, the desert where Lawrence of Arabia found solace in the "vast and echoing" landscape. The particular side canyon I chose was not vast, but it was echoing ...
Dying to go to the Dead Sea
... to become Person 1, as above. With slightly sore heads, we wake up on Thursday morning and catch a bus off to Amman, Jordan's capital city. It is there that our Group of Eight begins to separate. Rene is flying back to Holland, Mark ...
Day 17: Eilat to Jordan, Bedouin Tent Experience
... the credit card invoice for our remaining balance. We put our two backpacks in the jeep and we're off! At the Israeli-Jordan border crossing, our driver gives us a tag for our clothes that says "ECO" so we can be identified on the Jordanian ...
Birthday in Aqaba
I got a nice happy birthday song from the other jeep we were traveling with as we raced across the red sand after we left our camp. We then had a quick bus transfer from Wadi Rum to Aqaba where we would be spending the day. Not much was going on ...
From Mount Nebo to Bethany
... Further along was a barber shop, where I chatted with the Palestinians there as one shaved my beard. A large percentage of Jordan is composed of Palestinians. One barber had lived in New York City and Brazil for many years. On two ...
Petra
For three days, Petra was a place to roam and explore, a place full of twists and turns and ever-changing colors as the sun arced in the sky. This was one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, thanks to multiple votes from almost every Jordanian ...
Crossing the Border
Leaving the truck, I paid the driver and jumped on a bus into the center of Amman, the capital of Jordan, where I would stay only one night before crossing the border across the West Bank into Jerusalem. One night was enough to walk around the old center ...
A High at the Lowest Point on Earth
... needed help. He read my note and pointed me in the right direction then punctuated our exchange with the now familiar, "Welcome to Jordan". Wide-eyed with brows arched I stepped up into an old yellow bus and showing the driver the card I greeted him ...
Day 18: Wadi Rum, Petra by Candlelight
... we set our own schedule. He says usually people come to Wadi Rum for a few hours around 10 or 11 AM, after passing through Jordan customs in the morning, on their way to Petra. He is basically done with us. It is at this time that ...
The Rose of Jordan
... form by the time we get back to Sask! Wadi Musa is the town located just outside Petra ("wadi" meaning valley, "musa" meaning spring), Jordan's pride and joy, "a red-rose city half as old as time" as the poem by Dean Burgon goes. So many things are ...
Road Trip
... the "king" of castles in Syria (i.e., Crac de Chevalier). So we continued on up the King's Highway through the Wadi Mujib ("Jordan's Grand Canyon") to Madaba (just south of Amman) - a much more pleasant place to stay than the capital (and easier to ...
Celebrate
... promise, and I'm a man of my word. It seems, upon reflection of this entry, that I couldn't highlight a positive about Jordan without mentioning a corresponding negative in Egypt. I'm sorry, it is because of the just-recently-removed-from-Egypt mind ...
Bedouin for 1 night
It was a quick drive from Petra to get to Wadi Rum. We arrived at the entrance to the desert and stocked up on supplies at the small shops. Big rocks towered down over the red sand. We had a jeep safari planned to take us out to our camp in the ...

