Desert dash – 60 hours in Jordan
You’re never going to be able to do a whole country justice with just 60 hours, but we sure gave it a good go.
When researching our trip to Egypt, I kept coming across reviews about and suggestions of combing the site of Petra.
As with so many bucket list-type sights, most people just race through a country or location, tick the list and move on. Petra seemed like one of those places.
Before I go on, I hate travelling like this. Travis perhaps even more so – he constantly berates me for designing ‘Amazing Race’ style itineraries.
However, with the main focus for this trip being Egypt, I looked at how we could see a bit of Jordan as a short stopover on the way to the main event.
The problem with me and short stopovers is that the more I look into a place, the more I wish I had more time. Jordan has so much to offer – it is at the crossroads of the ancient world, the home of many biblical and religious sites, the battleground of the crusades, the list goes on. And then you consider the natural beauty of the country – arid deserts, stunning canyons, the northern mountains, and of course, the Dead Sea.
You could easily spend a week in Jordan, but with only three days, we settled on three things – Petra, the Dead Sea, and the ruins of the Ancient Roman city Jerash. Oh, and I was doing all the driving.
Our amazing race around Jordan ended up looking like:
Day 1: Arrive in Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport at 10:00 a.m. from Dubai. Collect a hire car. Drive three hours to Petra. Visit Petra for a few hours in the afternoon.
Day 2: Visit Petra as soon as it opens (6:00 a.m.). Drive three hours to our Dead Sea resort. Relax the rest of the day.
Day 3: Relax in the morning. After lunch, drive 1.5 hours to Jerash. Explore for a couple of hours. Drive 1 hour to the airport.
Petra – Jordan’s holy grail
Did you catch the Raiders of the Lost Ark reference? Probably long before it was immortalised in the 1981 Hollywood Indiana Jones blockbuster, Petra’s most famous structure Al-Khazneh (the Treasury) has continually drawn people to its beautiful pink sandstone façade.
Nothing quite prepares you as you wander through the Siq – the gorge that is the main entrance to the ancient Nabatean city – for your first glimpse of the remarkable building. You twist and turn along the narrow path for just over 1 km before the main event is dramatically revealed.
Your eyes are drawn up along the columns of the first tier, through the upper level, to where a carved urn sits atop the incredible structure. When you spend some time and look more closely at the structure (which I implore visitors to do – just sit and be present for a while), it becomes more and more impressive, and difficult to fathom, just how they created this way back in the 1st century AD. It’s not even technically a building – it is a carving, starting from the top, using only simple iron chisels and hammers. Amazing.
Petra isn’t just the Treasury; the entire site is massive at around 264 km2. Also known as the Rose City, due to the colour of the stone out of which it is carved, the city served as the capital of Nabatean Kingdom from around 400 BC. Given this, there are many well preserved and ruined structures with an architectural style a blend of Assyrian, Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Roman influences.
Ad-Deir (the Monastery) is probably the second most impressive attraction. You need to take 800 steep steps up, cut directly into rock, to reach it which would take around 45-60 minutes to walk. The scenery along the way is simply breathtaking, and you have the option of renting a donkey for the climb. We took the donkey. Both ways. We were on a tight schedule. Wink.
Other attractions to see include the impressive Royal Tombs, a Roman theatre, the Great Temple and the Byzantine Church. Petra just lends itself to being explored – just wandering and climbing around and seeing where a path will take you. Visiting here really is a quintessential Indiana Jones experience – whatever that is – basically you can live out your I’m-an-explorer-discovering-something fantasies.
I’m often amazed when I read up on the history of some places I visit. Petra was prominent at its peak as a trading centre in the Middle East. The city basically fell into oblivion after it was conquered, other trading routes opened up (particularly sea routes), other cities rose in prominence (particularly Palmyra in Syria – yes, the Palmyra the crazies went to town on), and natural disasters occurred (specifically an earthquake in 363 AD). It wasn’t until the early 1800s that it was rediscovered by a Swiss guy named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt that people were able to appreciate its beauty once again.
Some tips:
We purchased a two day pass for Petra. It isn’t much more expensive than the single day pass and it suited our itinerary. You really do need more than one day to explore the area – we saw most of the main attractions, but missed out doing some of the recommended walks (such as up the mountain to the High Place of Sacrifice).
Timing is important as the site gets very busy with day trippers from Amman and Israel. Our afternoon visit allowed us to stay until closing time just before sunset and our morning visit allowed us to enter at 6:00 a.m. and beat the crowds.
There are some great viewpoints for the Treasury – two platforms to observe it from above. One is reasonably official and another one that should not be reached without a guide – you can give one of the touts a few dollars and they will take you up. If heights make you nervous, well, prepare to be nervous.
Map out and plan what you want to see before you go. This will make it a lot easier to get around the vast site. On our first afternoon we just wandered around (as planned) and then had a more concrete plan the next morning – basically get in early and beeline to the Monastery and then make our way back from there until we had to leave to get to the Dead Sea. We spent probably 4 hours each visit.
Regarding using animals for transport, this is really up to you. Some animals appear very well looked after, others not so much. Make your own judgement call.
We stayed at the Mövenpick Resort Petra which is literally right at the entrance to the site. The hotel was adequate, but not amazing. I’ll review it separately.
The Dead Sea – As if you wouldn’t take that cliché photo
It’s a weird sensation. You’re so buoyant in the water that you simply lean back and your body just pops up to the surface and you lie there floating effortlessly. No matter how you try, you can’t really force yourself underwater. Not that you’d want to – your eyes would burn and I’m sure it wouldn’t taste amazing.
And that’s about it. That’s the Dead Sea experience. Lie back and float in water. That and rubbing mud all over you and sitting around in the sun with it on as if it is the cure for every ailment known to man.
In all seriousness, it’s such a weird feeling being in this body of water which is 10 times saltier than the ocean. You’re also 430 m below sea level, making this the lowest point on land on earth. Pretty cool.
In terms of visiting, we did it the nice way. I’m not sure what the other way would be as I’ve only ever envisaged staying at the marvellous (and massive) Kempinski Hotel Ishtar Dead Sea. The hotel has a beach area on the shore with sunbeds, showers and the all-important Dead Sea mud. They’ll even help you apply it.
And, of course, various reading materials are provided so you can get your photo catching up on whatever you’re pretending to be interested in whilst lying back in the water.
There are many resorts to cater to any budget along the coast. The Kempinski is definitely the best, but if you’re just here to experience floating in the sea and perhaps you believe that there are some health benefits to the salty water and the mud, than any choice will offer you what you seek.
Some tips:
Just one actually. Don’t do any personal grooming in the days before getting in the salty water… Ouch.
By the way, the Dead Sea is actually a lake.
Jerash – The City of Columns
Aside from Petra and the Dead Sea, I didn’t really know what else there was when I first started looking into what Jordan offered a traveller. The more I read about the Greco-Roman ruins of Jerash, the more I knew I had to weave it into our itinerary.
The Jerash ruins are reputedly some of the best-preserved Roman ruins outside of Italy, if not in the world. It is an incredible complex well worth visiting, especially if you’re into Roman history. It was founded sometime in the Hellenistic period – most likely by Alexander the Great, but some say possibly Ptolemy II of Egypt or the Seleucid King Antioch IV.
As the Roman Empire declined, invasions happened, and eventually an earthquake occurred in 749 AD, the city was lost and was only rediscovered under soil in the early 1800s. Excavations began in the 1920s and continue to this day.
You enter the site through the 2nd century Hadrian’s Arch, which marks the ancient city’s southern boundary. You pass the massive hippodrome, which was actually the smallest in the Roman Empire at around 240 m long and 50 m wide.
Finally you reach the main city area. Most impressive for me was the Forum with its fifty-six Ionic columns surrounding the paved limestone plaza. Leading off this is the main colonnaded avenue – the 600 m Cardo – which links a number of impressive attractions including the Temple of Artemis, the nymphaeum (the main fountain of the city), and the North Theatre.
Just near the Forum, an easy climb takes you up to the South Theatre and Temple of Zeus, the latter offering incredible views over the entire site and really allowing you to see why some people call Jerash the City of Columns.
The ruins cover a reasonably large area, but we covered everything in around 2.5 hours. I probably would have preferred a guide to bring everything to life a little more, but we did okay walking around on our own, eavesdropping on groups, or reading information from our phones.
Some tips:
Try and include it! It’s only an hour or so north of Amman (and just 45 km south of the Syrian border).
Allow 2-4 hours depending on your level of interest in this type of thing. Guides are available.
It’s an easy self-drive with car parking available at the entry.
Driving around Jordan – Where potholes are as impressive as ancient attractions
Oh. My. God. The potholes. And the random speed bumps. With next to no warning.
More on that in a moment.
When I tell people we went to Jordan and saw Petra and we drove ourselves around, no one is interested in one of the 7 New Wonders of the World, they’re more interested in why on earth we decided to drive ourselves around Jordan.
Disclaimer: I love driving. I always seem to have the best experiences and best holidays when I can do my own thing, make my own plans and go at my own pace. Driving can be a complete enabler of this.
Originally, I started looking in to hiring a driver for the 60-odd hours we were in Jordan. This was looking a little cost prohibitive and, once I started reading how great the road network was in the country, pointless.
We hired a car at the airport when we landed in Amman. This was all super easy. My Australian or European license was sufficient and they just blocked a small deposit on my debit card (didn’t insist for credit card). Jordan is horrifically expensive – usually we’d hire something like a Mercedes-Benz C-Class or BMW 3 Series, however, for this trip I booked a Citroen C4 (or similar) via Europcar. Well, in this case, ‘or similar’ meant a clapped-out base-level Mazda. Yay.
We set off from the airport on our first trip – 200 km from Queen Alia International Airport to Mövenpick Resort Petra via the desert highway. The three hour drive started well and I thought great – this will be a fast trip on a nice road. However, the minute we left the Amman area, the road went to the dogs and for a large section of the ‘highway’, the road was possibly the worst road I have ever driven on. The roads improved closer to Petra.
Our second trip was another 200 km from Petra to the Kempinski Hotel Ishtar Dead Sea. This was via the Kings Highway which now a modern road was actually an ancient trading route. This was a better drive (random speed bumps aside) and the scenery was spectacular. There are lots of attractions to see along this route – Shobak Castle, Kerak Castle, the Dana Biosphere Reserve and Wadi Mujib are a few of note. We (in the interests of time and to my dismay) had to race past all of these. Unfortunately there was a massive dust storm on the day, so we didn’t get to experience the best of this drive through the mountains and then down to the Dead Sea in terms of views. What we did see was incredible though and I can only imagine what it’d be like on a clear day.
Our third drive was the 170 km trip from the Dead Sea up to Jerash, and then back down to the airport. This was an easy drive, but we did run into quite a bit of traffic as you go through the Amman suburbs. As in a lot of developing countries, road rules are pretty much non-existent, so driving in traffic is sometimes literally just make your own way through however you like. There were a few petrol stations very close to the airport for topping up before drop off. Petrol is pretty pricey for a Middle East country – around 1 JOD / L (2.04 AUD / L) for 95.
In summary, driving in Jordan was super easy and I really recommend it. The roads are okay – in some areas they are genuinely horrific, in others they’re perfectly fine. Everywhere is really well sign posted in Arabic and English, however, we just used Waze for all our navigating. Other drivers are pretty good and outside of the Amman area, there are not a lot of cars on the road.
Some tips:
Get full insurance. This is one place where I really felt happy Travis made me get full insurance. How we did not blow all our tyres or completely bust a rim is beyond me.
Don’t worry about getting pulled over by police – they just want to check you have what I assume are registration papers. Normally the minute they realised we were foreigners they just waved us on.
Get a reasonably powerful car. I’m pretty sure we were almost going backwards driving up the hill from the Dead Sea.
Buy a data SIM for your phone at Amman airport. I used Zain and had great coverage all over the country.
Waze was great, although it sometimes told me there were speed cameras and unless they was really well disguised as giant rocks, we didn’t see them. They are very numerous close to Amman though.