Jordan; like a dream 🇪🇭

Greetings from Jordan It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime trip and didn't disappoint! I would absolutely recommend getting the Jordan Pass: it's an entry ticket to many of the tourist sites and also includes your visa fee. The airport process with it prepaid was swift and simple. We bought the one with a two-day entry to Petra. We rented a car at the airport and stayed our first two nights at Marriott Amman.

We spent our first full day in Jerash to see the Roman ruins. The area was much larger than I thought and exceeded all expectations. Bring lots of water! I just visited Rome a few months before so it was great to compare with such fresh memories. It was amazing how you could basically touch and climb on anything, you got to really explore freely. They are also in great shape and reflect a different part of Roman history which was great. The drive is about 40 minutes north of Amman. Apparently, taxis are cheap too so that's the other option if you are unsure about the traffic. The traffic definitely is interesting, more so because Google Maps seems a bit lost on the great intersections as well.

On our second day, we drove to the dead sea and visited Wadi Al Mujib. It's a river canyon and one of the most popular sites. What we didn't find online is that even though you are able to go to the Siq trail on your own, you have to enter the queue. Since it was a Saturday, when we arrived around 10 am they said we would have to wait up to three hours to enter the canyon. This is because everyone must wear a lifejacket so there are only so many people at the same time in the canyon regardless of which route you take. Afterall. We ended up waiting for only about an hour and a half so I'm glad we didn't decide to go dip into the dead sea during the wait as we considered. The Siq trail costs 21 jd per person.

You have the option to go overland and then scale down to the canyon by the main waterfall (4 h) or go the Siq trail there and back (2-3 h). We opted for the Siq trail and I would also recommend that one. There are roughly 10 rapids to conquer on the way, 5 of them are a bit bigger. There are ropes to help you and it's a lot of fun. On the way back, you go down on all of them but going up is more fun and you would miss it if you didn't take the waterway both ways. However, I must say that none of the routes are easy. The Siq trail is advertised as easy to moderate but it definitely wasn't. Also, swimming is considered an optional benefit. I think if you can't swim or are intimidated by climbing on rocks by pulling yourself on ropes, this might not be a pleasant experience. We greatly enjoyed it; the canyon is stunning and completely unique. I loved a bit of rock climbing and swimming. You will get completely submerged so you'll want to bring a dry bag and plan your outfit accordingly. They also have some dry bags and water shoes to rent. From the canyon, we drove about 30 minutes to stay at the Ma'in hot spring resort. If you stay at the resort, you get free access to the hot springs in the morning before they open to the public. The resort was okay, it's very beautiful though not as functional but the location is great and the early morning access is worth it. I had never been to a hot spring waterfall before so the experience was lovely.

We filled up our empty water bottles with tap water and headed to the free public beach near Wadi Mujib and try dead sea swimming. You can also pay to access a resort beach but we didn't think it was worth it. The public beach was beautiful and easy to get to! Wear good shoes to walk down the beach. I didn't have expectations and the whole experience was mad! I loved every second of it. You should also take good care to protect your eyes and bear in mind that all cuts etc hurt like hell. We rinsed off with the tap water and drove on to Petra or more specifically Wadi Mousa, the city by Petra.

We stayed at the Petra Canyon Hotel which was middle of its soft opening but very nice and just five minutes away from the Petra free car park. The whole system is super well organised. Just remember to put on really really good shoes. Petra is stunning and amazing but also mainly just a scorching long walk! Bring lots of water too. Because the competition is high, the prices within Petra are actually shockingly reasonable. You should pay 1 jd for a big bottle of water. The nearest places charge 2 jd.

Once you enter the protected area, you first walk about a kilometre on gravel in sunshine to get to the famous Siq which is a bit more covered and around 1,5 km long. In the end, you'll get that first famous peek at the treasury facade. We had a quick bite to go at 6 am at the hotel and were among one of the first people in the Siq which opens at 6 am. I would definitely recommend going early because we had a very calm peaceful walk in a beautiful morning sun with very few other people. We also decided to hike to the tomb trail first to see the treasury from above which was good to do in the morning. The sun reaches above the mountain by 9 am and the temperature rose to 32 degrees. Petra has great services, souvenirs, water, food and snacks are sold; several toilets can be accessed. You can also ride a horse to the Siq or a golf cart nearly all the way to the treasury so Petra is quite accessible to all. After the treasury panorama view, we hiked down and continued our way towards the monastery. The hike there is a little hectic, full-on stair for 30 minutes but the view is well worth it. They also offer donkey rides up there.

We did some shopping on the steps down from the monastery, I would say this was the best shopping spot in Petra. We finished our first 8-hour hiking day in Petra by exploring the street of the facades. The day was great but exhausting! After a dip in the hotel pool, a quick nap and we headed back to Petra for the Petra by-night experience. It's 17 jd per person, starts at 8.30 pm and lasts for about two hours. It's run by an independent local group whose work you support by going. The Siq is lit with candles which lead to the treasury with hundreds of candles. The group presents local music and you get to stay and wander around and take photos after. The event itself is lovely and well planned, however, you'll never know if you get unlucky with the other people. We definitely got unlucky with people shouting and arriving late and ruining the experience for others. So, if you do go, please be quiet and respectful, arrive on time and down use a flash or a flashlight.

The next day we headed back to Petra for another five hours to complete the few hikes we hadn't done the day before. We hiked to another viewpoint of the treasury and continued from there to the high place of sacrifice which was definitely interesting. A few more glances at the incredible caves and facades and we were done. We drove to the wadi rum desert directly. The highways are easy to get around and mostly in. Decent shape so renting a car was definitely the right call. We stayed at rum kingdom camp which was called the Legend camp on Google Maps. The camp was incredible, straight out of a movie (many were filmed in that desert).

We booked a night tour for that evening so we went out in jeeps to the desert, had a genuine Bedouin camp and watched the stars. It was quite magical. I have this app on my phone called Stellarium which I use to spot constellations. The following morning, we had a four-hour jeep tour around the desert where we got to make a few cool hikes and enjoy the vastness of it all. The wadi rum is divided into a protected and a not protected area and it has plenty of amazing canyons and rock formations to see. You can't help but think that you are in the Dune movie.

That evening, we took a little sunset stroll with camels. I'm always torn if something like that is ethical, but the camels seemed to be well treated (a camel costs 4000 - 5000 jd so they are very valuable) and we only sat on them for a few minutes so it seemed alright.

Then we headed to our final destination: Aqaba beach town. We arrived early and spent the day by the local hot spot pool Berenice beach club. It was a lovely chilled spot and a welcome change from the desert.

We spent the whole next day out on the sea with Diverse Divers and did two scuba dives. The first was down to 15 metres to see some corals and cool fish; a huge lionfish and some cool rainbow fish too. The second dive was down to 28 metres, and we got inside a plane wreck. It was epic! We sat on the seats and went through a turbine. I still can't quite believe we got to do it. We made some great friends on the boat, met some really experienced divers and the service was great! We were recommended a sushi place in town for dinner as easily the best sushi in the Middle East so we went there. It's called sushi corner and it lived up to the hype! Would absolutely recommend it. On our final full day, we drove back up to Amman and decided to visit Rainbow Street, Jordan Museum for the dead sea scrolls and do a little bit of shopping.

I can honestly say, the best trip I've ever taken. Jordanian people are lovely, the country incredible and unique, it's easy to get around and the majority of things work really well. Some small fun things happened too: we popped a tyre (got it fixed for 2 jd), got stuck in the sand in the desert (did you know that the easiest way out is to empty a bit of air) and got stopped by the police twice. We had a rental car but apparently, the license had expired, the company told us that they didn't have the same car readily available so they would just pay for all the fines. Best. Mira