Jordan experience

Camel ride in Wadi Rum
Originally uploaded by timbo262

A lot has happened since my last post, I've not only been on a great holiday to Jordan but moved to Sydney, Australia now too!

Jordan was fantastic, a lot how I imagined it would be but also some surprises too. After spending the first night in Amman (the capital) we drove down to Petra via the Dead Sea and a cool place called Wadi Mujib which is a massive valley still with some running water carved out many years ago. A quick dip in the Dead Sea (which I had heard a lot about) was a strange experience and I can now personally confirm you do float in this expanse of water 5 times more salty than normal salt water.

Petra is the main attraction for most visitors to Jordan and it did not let us down. You can see from the many photos on my flickr acccount that there is a lot to see and do and it's all around beauty.

From Petra we moved on to Wadi Rum which in effect is the desert. We had a camp booked, Mel was worried about this part of the trip and expected to see creepy crawly bugs but we made it through the night without any bites! It would be lying to say Mel enjoyed the stay in rather "basic" conditions camping in the desert but I really honestly did. We were treated to an amazing sunset followed by "Zurb" which is similar to a Maori Hangi where the food is cooked under the ground - biggest difference being a Zurb is generally done in sand!

Next stop was the part Mel was waiting for. 4 nights in a 5 star hotel by the beach with some scuba diving in the mix at Aqaba on the Red Sea! The resort was very nice and the diving meant I did not get itchy feet to ditch the sun baking and hit the desert again! We did 5 dives, the most memorable for me being 27 metres under and through a wreck (Cedar Pride) where I got my first taste of technical diving in a wreck (don't tell the dive police I am not qualified!).

I would recommend Jordan to anyone wanting a good mix of sight-seeing and beach/diving, 9 nights was good but 10 would have meant we got to see a couple of extra places that seemed worthwhile, especially Jerash north of Amman.

Cheers
Tim