We travelled in mid-February, and although Jordan was quite cold, it didn’t detract from this wonderful country. Standing in Amman, on the ruins of the Roman citadel with the overpopulated hills surrounding and hearing the call to prayer sounding out all around, was a surreal introduction to the country. Jerash is an amazing Roman ruined city, and huge. How so many archeological treasures remained hidden in sand for so long is beyond me.
The Dead Sea was the glorious weather exception. Being the lowest point on earth, the sea temperature was about 20 degrees and we all experienced the weird floating sensation once you worked out how exactly to get in!
Travelling past the Crusader castles and extremely rugged Biblical landscapes, we arrived at the amazing Petra. Wow, so much history, and with our very competent guide we learned so much. A tip would be to get hold of the book “Married to a Bedouin” by Marguerite van Geldermalsen before going…. I only learned about her at Petra and bought her book there from her son, a souvenir seller with a wonderful Kiwi accent. Had I read it before going, I would have had so much more insight.
Lastly in Jordan; the amazing Wadi Rum. Our overnight in a Bedouin camp was much more comfortable than I had imagined, with heating and hot water for our shower. Take a torch, it’s pitch black at night! Amazing traditional food was prepared for us, and the camel ride into the sunset of the Eastern Sahara was a pinchable moment for me. The baby camel stole our hearts!
From Cairo to Upper Egypt - it was all uphill from there, better and better the further south we went. My most amazing experience was Abu Simbel, one of the 18 temples raised from its original position out of the path of the rising Nile. This happened once the Aswan High Dam was built in the 60s. The appreciation of the engineering effort involved on this task is one thing, but the beautiful art inside both the Ramses and Nefertari Temples should not be missed.
Temples at Luxor and Aswan - “oooh” moments all the time. The balloon flight over the Valley of the Kings was amazing. Then with feet back on the ground seeing inside the tombs; the amazing interpretation of the pictures by our guide and the colours – even after all these years! Stunning.
If you can imagine what discovery of these tombs, temples and artefacts must have meant to the archeologists concerned, after in some cases 3000 years, then the fact that we are lucky enough to be able to visit them, is a privilege indeed.