While I travelled through Uganda and its neighbouring countries

, my wife Gosia was deployed to Jordan to support humanitarian aid projects for people in war-torn Syria.
I joined my wife at the end of her deployment in Amman. On a flight with Egypt Air, I had more than nine -hour lay over in Kairo, which might sound tiring, but turned out to be really pleasant as Egypt Air organised a visa-free entry into Egypt and booked a room in a 4-star hotel near the airport. On top of that, they arranged a private tour to the pyramids for just 30USD. The pyramids and the nearby Sphinx were well frequented, mostly with locals who enjoyed the weekend.

It wasn’t my first time to Jordan. Previous year, we spent our Christmas holidays in Jordan and visited the famous necropolis of Petra, took a dive in the Red Sea and marveled at the Mars-like landscape of Wadi Rum. But Jordan has much more to see. The trek from the village of Dana to Petra, a 72km part of the more than 600km long Jordan Trail, is definitely worth recommending. The National Geographic rating as of one the world’s 15 best hikes raises the bar for a bit too high my taste but it is certainly a memorable hike. We planned to hike in three days to an archaeological site dubbed as Little Petra and skip the last part into the necropolis of Petra as we have hiked a considerable part of that trek already during our last visit.

Due to unfavourable weather, we delayed the hike by one day and opted for a DIY salt and mud treat in one of the plenty wellness hotels along the shore of the Dead Sea. According to the extensive information and GPS tracks offered by Jordantrail.org, no food and very limited water supply were available along the way, with the exception of a lodge that one passes after the first three hours. We filled our backpacks with plenty of food (far too much and too heavy as we have later realized), water, camping gear and of course my photography equipment. Thanks to Gosia (and in accordance to a piece of advice received by a friend who did this track a couple of weeks earlier), we took more water than I suggested, being too optimistic regarding our needs. On the first day we descended along the picturesque Wadi Dana from an altitude of 1300m to 300m and temperature rose to very comfortable twenty something degrees, not bad for the end of February 🙂 Think twice before coming here during the summer months, as temperatures will be unbearable during the day. Even though the trek is not an insider tip anymore and it was the best season for hiking, we’ve met just one group with a guide on their way to Petra and one couple doing the short hike to the lodge. With no villages and infrastructure other than dirt roads, a quiet  and peaceful trek is almost guaranteed. The four bedouin families we saw during our 23km trail didn’t take much notice of us. It is certainly not easy to keep on living the traditional nomadic lifestyle with its difficulties when the modern and comfortable life is so close.

After we had dinner and crawled into our sleeping bags, lights of a passing car suddenly flooded our tent. Three men in an antiquated and battered jeep were trying to find their way following tracks in the rocky desert. But the tracks near our tent apparently didn’t lead to where they wanted to be and a few minutes later the jeep rumbled all the way back. The dry riverbed next to our camping spot wasn’t a better choice and the car had to turn around when big rocks blocked its way.

With some of the tracks visible in openstreetmaps on my smartphone, I tried to help them find their way. That seemed successful until the headlights of the jeep appeared again half an hour later. However, this time the car was followed by a donkey tied to the car. The car drove from where it has come, but returned several minutes later. It looked like a bad comedy and I was afraid this game will go on all night long. Fortunately, their next choice of trail was better and the jeep rumbled into the darkness without returning again.

When we crossed the rocky desert to head back towards the mountain range we felt the strain of our heavy backpacks. Gosia had to fight against blisters and my ankles began to hurt while walking over the loose gravel and rocks. But the nice views over the Jordan valley and Wadi Fayd on the other side of the pass that we climbed compensated for the pain. Running low on water, we were quite relieved when we found the spring in Wadi Fayd, the only water source available on the second day of the hike, bubbling with clear and cool water.
While stretching our legs at the camping spot just above Wadi Fayd

, we assessed our situation. We saw a weather front approaching from the west, possibly causing flash floods in the wadis. Furthermore, our feet didn’t feel like going another 24km the next day. However, getting back to civilisation required another 8km and 600m elevation gain. We opted for cutting the hike short and taking a warm shower afterwards 🙂

In the desert that covers a big part of eastern Jordan, one can find several ruins of castles and palaces from Ummayad to Ottoman rule. We spent one day to visiting the best preserved desert castles before we continued further north to the city of Al-Salt.

From Al-Salt we continued further north to the city of Jerash. Named Gerasa in the Greco-Roman world puttygen ssh , the city was one of the Decapolis, a group of autonomous cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire. Today, one can visit in Jerash, a well-preserved Roman city with temples, theatres, a hippodrome, a huge colonnaded forum and so forth. If you make an early start, you will likely have the ruins almost for yourself during the first hour.