As you might have read before on this blog, some of us had planned to go to Jordan during the Christmas break, only it didn’t work out because of multiple reasons… So Matthieu proposed to go during the Easter break, but then again, most of the team couldn’t or wouldn’t come. Just a few days before the break, Amelie and Caroline decided to join Matthieu on an adventure of 5 days through Jordan. As he had already been there, Matthieu organised the trip and served as guide.
So we three left on the same day as Moritz, and flew to Amman. We were quite scared as the steward announced a local temperature of 5°C. A bad joke obviously; we fried during our entire trip! After passing through immigration and getting cool stamps on our passports, we rented a car at the airport and began our journey on the great Hashemite Kingdom. We drove West to Madaba, where we were completely immerged in a different Middle East than the one we are now used to and saw quite impressive mosaics. We quickly drove further West to the Dead Sea. Now that was some proper self-spoiling. We landed in a four star “spa” hotel, with our own bungalow as a room, 3 or 4 pools, a great view and a lot of awesomeness. So we spent a bit more than a day there, going to the sea, floating for a while, then putting mud all over ourselves, and resting a bit in the sun to rest of all these previous efforts and to work on our tan a bit…
We left the Dead Sea fully relaxed and drove South the next day on the Kings’ Road. So the afternoon was mainly spent looking at amazing landscapes and wadis along that road. We lost our track right before sunset, which seemed to bother no one but Matthieu. The girls were more into playing with the kids than finding our way before the night fell… We fortunately found our way after a while and made it safely through the desert to Petra.
It would be pointless to describe the awesomeness of the hotel we stayed in, as we would only appear spoiled (again!). We woke up early in the next morning to start a day that will probably stay in our minds for a very long time. Petra is a world wonder, no wonder why. Seriously though, it is proper amazing. Matthieu did the guide during the whole day and obviously enjoyed his explanations more than the girls who seemed a bit more concerned by taking pictures of themselves while posing or jumping or whatever. We hiked the whole day from temple to tomb, from cistern to monastery or sacrificial place. Quite impressive, the whole thing! And then happened something unexpected, to say the least. We were coming down from the mountain as two Bedouins proposed to take us on the top of a temple to watch sunset. We accepted and enjoyed some appetizers on the top of this huge temple, our feet almost hanging in the empty, watching sunset over Petra. Cool. Very cool! But that was only the beginning of our adventure. The Bedouins invited us to share diner at their cave in the middle of nowhere. We also accepted and were off to a memorable evening. Matthieu first had to run next to the donkeys while the girls and the Bedouins were on them until we made it to the Bedouin village. There, we first enjoyed tea at their family home before setting off to the desert again. We arrived on a sort of a cave which was more of a platform on a rock in the right middle of the desert. There, we lit fire and they started to cook an absolutely delicious diner and boiled tea. We ate with nothing above us but the Milky Way. We talked quite a lot and learned a lot from them. These guys were completely free. It inspired us a lot and instigated reflexions in our minds concerning our own life and conception of happiness and freedom. Then they brought us back to our hotel and wished us good night. As we laid in bed, we thought to ourselves that this night had just come out of a dream… It did, in a way.
On the next day, we left Petra and drove South again direction Aqaba. Amazing landscapes again, but the temperature was rising by the minute. When we came to Aqaba, we were just about toasting. So we dropped our stuff at the hotel and left to the beach. The Red Sea wasn’t so warm, unfortunately, so we decided not to spend too much time bathing but rather to go for a drink. And so we did! But after one or two cocktails, it was about midnight already and we somehow felt like a little bath again. So back we went and bathed under the stars in the Red Sea… Don’t be jealous, maybe you’ll do it one day, too.
We woke up early on the next morning, and drove North to Wadi Rum. Vast, echoing and Godlike were the terms used in the tour guide to describe this area in the desert. We spent our morning walking in this desert, chasing the camels and drawing words in the sand. And then it was already time to go back to Amman. 350km of highway through the desert. That might look cool, and indeed it is, but it’s also quite long, especially since that highway is just about straight… Completely straight. We eventually made it to the airport and back to Beirut safely.
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