Michael’s trip to the Middle East

Not only is Amman located on 23 mountains the whole country is mountainous and that makes for some spectacular views as you drive around. From Al Abdali Hotel in Amman that was at 850meters above sea level we started to drive towards the Dead Sea. It is abut 1 hour drive. On the way there, took the must have picture with the Sea Level marker and continued the descent all the way to 407 meters below sea level. This drive is pretty nice.

Getting in the Dead Sea is a very unique experience. You will feel all of a sudden a lot lighter; if only loosing weight will be that easy. Worth mentioning the experience of lifting your feet of the sea floor and quickly flipping on you back. Hard to describe how much of the body is actually above water. When standing in water though, I was out of the water from above the chest; that was impressive.

The water is about 30% salt and getting any of it in your mouth or eyes, is a bad idea. As you walk on the shore you will see salt crystals shining in the sun; later on driving on the highway hugging the shore, it is impossible not to notice the salt build up on the rocks on the shore.
It was very humid and the sun was very strong, sunscreen use is a must.
The one little detail that interferes with this unique experience are the large amount of flies that buzz around.
In order to actually get to the sea you have to get to one of the private beaches, 15JD, lunch included. If you do not have a towel or want to rent a locker, no problem 1.5 JD each.

After a few dips in the sea and the hotel pool we kept driving towards Petra.
The drive across the mountains through small villages is absolutely spectacular. In a short drive you get from -407m to close to 1800m. Humidity is gone and the temperature is just perfect. Taking the drive through Tafila is a much better alternative than driving the highway, mind you, much more demanding on the clutch and brakes.

Getting to Petra was a treat in itself. 3 hours from the Dead Sea.

Next day we visited Petra starting at 7AM. The site actually opens at 6AM, and in retrospective getting up that early is not such a bad idea. You would avoid some of the heat and some of the tourists. Getting a guide is quite important as there are very few plaques describing the site.
From the Siq, Treasury and continuing to the Monastery it is absolutely fantastic.
While in theory you could ride or be carried through the entire site by horse, donkey or camel, at least for the ascent to the Monastery riding is a pretty risky proposition. Our guide actually witnessed one accident, and let me tell you, falling of the horse on that section is the least of your worries. The really bad fall will follow all the way to the bottom of the gorge below.

Petra is a definite must see.

Moving along in the afternoon we went to a “Bedouin camp” in Wadi Rum. Very commercial, I am not quite sure how many real Bedouins were around. The camel ride ( 8JD) and the jeep ride( 15JD) through the desert were worth it though.

Right after, we drove into Aqaba which is only 1 hour away.

Aqaba is very nice, and with massive investments in its infrastructure will only get better. There are plans to invest about 80billion USD in Aqaba in the next 10 years. With Aqaba area designated as a duty free zone things will likely move in the right direction.

Only a 20 minutes taxi ride is the Israeli border. As tempting as it sounds to visit Eilat, I think I will pass on the opportunity. This border crossing could take quite a bit( 2 – 3 hours accorinding to a local) depending on how busy it is.

By far the highlights of the whole trip were the Dead Sea and Petra. Both were absolutely impressive.

Lessons learned:– Driving through Jordan is spectacular through most of the country
-There are many checkpoints through out the country and you will be frequently asked for your passport
– Bus ride from Aqaba to Amman 5.5JD and 4 to 5 hours. Flights 35JD and 45 minutes.

More to come

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.