Jordan, Petra and Wadi Rum: beautiful, cheap and close
Travel broadens the mind, but unfortunately it also exposes the gaps in your education. Maybe I skipped school that day, maybe I was daydreaming, or maybe I was gazing at the back of the girl in the row in front. And so, while I had heard a thing or two about the Romans, and about the ancient Greeks too, I knew next to nothing about the Nabataeans. Yet it is thanks to them that today we can admire some of the most captivating and mysterious ruins on Earth. That place is Petra.
Cheap flights to Eilat and the Wadi Araba crossing
But let's start from the beginning... direct flights to Eilat on Israel's Red Sea coast are now offered from Katowice, Warsaw Chopin, Gdańsk, Kraków, Poznań and Modlin, and thanks to them, in a few hours and for ridiculously little money (yes, I am not afraid to say that a 100 PLN return ticket is a ridiculously low price), we can find ourselves in several very exotic places. Places worthy of travellers, unusual and fascinating places. I forgot to add that the first two routes are operated by Wizzair and the rest by Ryanair.
I visited southern Jordan before there were direct flights to Eilat, so to get there you had to combine a flight to Tel Aviv with a long-distance bus. It wasn't a disaster: the night bus across the desert took about 5 hours.
Now it can be done much more easily. The border crossing between Israel and Jordan is only about 6 km from the centre of Eilat.
It is easy to get there by taxi, and if you insist, you could probably walk. Israel takes great care of its security, so the checks are fairly thorough, with lots of questions and several points where you have to explain yourself. But let's not exaggerate: it was worse at Świecko on the Polish-German border in the 1980s. Relations between the two countries are good; what surprised me a little was that huge lorries use the Wadi Araba border crossing. While we were there, they were carrying brand-new cars.
The first thing you see on the Jordanian side is a big board showing the official taxi fares (set by the King and his officials) to the main destinations in the country.
Aqaba on the Red Sea
We went to the seaside resort of Aqaba and hired a car there. Looking back, I think that was a mistake. Jordan is one of those countries where it is better to get around by car with a driver than to hire one yourself. Not because of safety, but because of cost.
In Aqaba we stayed at Beduin Moon Village, a small hotel on the outskirts of the city, right by the south beach. We walked a little and did some snorkelling. Swimming in the sea, you can see the high-rises of Eilat and the mighty mountains of Egypt close by on the other side of the gulf.
I don't have a firm opinion of this resort, because the day we spent there was purely practical. I think anyone who wants to enjoy the seaside attractions of the Red Sea would do better to choose Sharm el-Sheikh, Dahab or even Taba, or the aforementioned Eilat. But the hotel also organises diving courses, from a simple half-hour introduction to diving (40 dinars / 200 PLN) to a 3-day PADI course priced at 300 dinars, or more than 1,500 PLN. But we hadn't come here for underwater adventures; ahead of us lay Petra and the Wadi Rum desert, the two great attractions of southern Jordan. Those who are worried about encountering refugees driven out of Syria by the war can be reassured. The refugee camps are in the north: the largest of them, Zaatari, is located north of the capital, Amman, about 400 km from the country's southern border.
Petra - the Treasury and the rock gorge
Time for Petra. Anyone who remembers the cult film "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" will quickly picture one of its most famous buildings, the "Treasury".
It is the first of the many ruins to appear before us, remnants of the magnificent city built by the Nabataeans between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century AD. The story of its discovery by modern Europeans fits the magic of the place perfectly. It happened only in 1812, when a Swiss explorer, in disguise and using an Arabic name, on the pretext of making an offering, persuaded his Arab guide to show him the lost city in the mountains that seemed to be no more than a legend passed down by word of mouth. To reach the "Treasury" you have to walk through a rocky gorge about 1.5 km long. The gorge itself is an attraction in its own right.
The rocks, sculpted by nature, are cut with channels that were designed to bring water in or drain excess water away from the city, as the Nabataeans had perfected the art of managing H2O. In Petra you look at the façades of buildings carved into the rock.
There is practically nothing inside them, so it is probably better to visit the museum located among Petra's historic buildings. We skipped it; museums have never really fascinated me (with a few exceptions). More than 2,000 years of weathering have caused extensive erosion. That is why it is best to visit Petra twice and use the play of light and shadow to appreciate its beauty better: in the evening, when the sun is low and setting, and then in the morning, to round off your impressions while the sun is still low, just after sunrise. Architecture brought out by the light makes a huge impression. A two-day ticket cost 55 Jordanian dinars, or about 280 PLN per person, in 2014.
Leaving the "Treasury" behind, you come out into an open space once occupied by the city proper. Today you can see the ancient "Theatre", the "Royal Tombs", the "Citadel", the "Temple of the Winged Lions" and a Roman colonnaded street.
The Monastery in Petra and Wadi Musa
The furthest monument of the archaeological site is the "Monastery". To get there, you have to walk a long path and climb more than 800 steps cut into the rock. It is worth considering a donkey, which, swaying from side to side, will laboriously carry you up on its back. The views are beautiful, and the animal's swaying between the rocks on one side and the precipice on the other will give you a thrill.
It was the "Monastery" that made the biggest impression on me: there are far fewer tourists here, and you almost feel you have the monument to yourself. You can savour the view while sipping good coffee on the terrace opposite.
The gateway town to Petra is Wadi Musa. It is well equipped for tourists, with its 5 five-star hotels, 3 four-star and 3 three-star hotels. From Aqaba it is 130 km along a good road that in places resembles a motorway
The Wadi Rum desert and a ride with a Bedouin
From Petra we head back south and, after just over 100 km, reach the Wadi Rum desert. The protected desert area was established in 1998 and covers 720 square kilometres. A sizeable visitor centre has been built on the main road leading into the desert. Like seasoned travellers, we drove past the touts standing by the road trying to flag down cars. One of them wouldn't give up and chased after us in his battered pickup. We had barely parked our car when he was already sitting behind the counter as the official representative of the office. The desks around were empty, not a living soul in sight, so, well, we accepted this transformation and trustingly surrendered to his patter. In the end we got good service and ended up at one of the best camps in the desert, as became clear during the evening Bedouin dinner. Our fellow diners (Korea? Japan?) kept asking how far in advance we had booked this renowned place...
The desert landscape of Wadi Rum is one of the most extraordinary and varied landscapes there is. The concentration of hills, canyons, small oases, dunes, rocks and rock bridges in a small area is hugely impressive.
Our official-cum-tout handed us over to a young Bedouin. We sat in the back of his pickup and he drove us around, showing us interesting rocks and new landscapes as they opened up. He stopped at a stone bridge that you could clamber up onto.
Another interesting moment was watching what you could call a two-coloured river of sand. White sand was coming out of the inside of the rock, while red sand was formed by the weathering of its outer layers. The two ribbons of sand ran side by side like a river. After a tour of the most interesting parts of the desert, we arrived at the camp. We had small huts at our disposal, at the foot of a cliff. Each hut had black woollen walls, with simple beds inside.
A Bedouin dinner and sunset in the desert
Before we sat down to feast together in international company, our hosts asked us to watch the process of cooking the meal. In fact, we witnessed the climax and final stage. A huge pot of stew was... dug out of the desert sand in front of us; it had spent several hours there so that all the ingredients could come together into a delicious whole.
Watching the sunset and the starry sky are musts during your stay. It was at sunset that we discovered one of the desert's secrets. As we set off for a short walk around the area, our guide pointed out the dried twigs of stunted shrubs sticking out of the barren ground. He said simply: "Watch them when the sun goes below the horizon." The sight was incredible: in the blink of an eye all the plants were covered in snow-white flowers. Even the feeble sticks I wouldn't have given tuppence for were strewn with white blossom.
Southern Jordan tempts you with beautiful desert landscapes and the world-renowned museum city of Petra. Now it is so easy to get there using super-cheap tickets to neighbouring Israel. It is an opportunity you mustn't miss!
If you want to read how to make the most of your planned trip, look -> Here.
