Dead Sea delights

Before heading off to the Dead Sea we checked out Karak Castle. It's another thousand year old crusader castle standing halfway between Shobak and Jerusalem. Si and I weren't too impressed with the castle but it did have some great views of the surrounding area which is the alleged location of Sodom and Gomorrah!

It was a fantastic drive from Karak, at over 1000m, down to the dead sea which is 400m below sea level, the lowest point on Earth. It's strange to think that all the boats in the world were floating above our heads! As you drive along the Dead Sea Highway you can see the salt crusting on the cliffs below.

Thanks to Si's Mom and Dad being very generous and giving us some money for a treat, we were able to stay at the very lovely Movenpick Resort and Spa. The hotel is very luxurious and set in large gardens which drop down to the sea and include four different pools.

We couldn't wait to get into the sea and try bobbing about. No matter how hard he tries Si can't ever seem to be able to float, however he floated like the best of them in the Dead Sea! It is a very strange sensation indeed, you literally can't sink. The water is up to 31% salt, 9 times that of normal sea water. If you were to get any in your eye or if you have any cuts it would be quite painful. It didn't mention in the guide books that 31% salt can also be rather uncomfortable on the more delicate body parts, so watch out! You can't really swim in the dead sea, if you try and do breast stroke the buoyancy of the water just flips you onto your back. As you can see below we did the time honored reading of the paper whilst bobbing about.

The hotel also supplied a big tub of mud. Dead Sea mud is supposed to be full of all sorts of minerals supposedly good for your health. I don't know about that but it was fun to get muddy and slap some on anyway.

We really tried to make the most of staying somewhere so nice. We sampled all of the pools, had some of the Movenpick's best ice cream, captured all of the free toiletries, soaked up the satellite tv, walked round in the robes and took our first bath in a very long time! We also thought they had left a box of chocolates in the room. Imagine our disappointment to open them and find dates, horrifying! We did however find a pillow menu. Yes, at the Movenpick you can ring housekeeping and choose between 10 different pillow types. Now that's choice for you.

We had a good meal at the resort's Italian restaurant and they served alcohol, but i think i must have the smallest glass of wine i have ever seen. However we made up for it at the buffet breakfast, we ate that much we doubted even the dead sea could keep us afloat! We were very sad to leave the Movenpick and head back to our normal backpacker type accommodation where even toilet paper, towels and sheets are sometimes seen as optional luxury extra items.

The mighty pea

Well we've got our own transport again which is great. This time it's a bright green little number, like a moderately sized pea, only with less power.

Once again our vehicle is so woeful that you need to turn the AC off if you want enough umph to get up the hills. At one point Si thought that I was going to have to get out with the bags and push!

The driving conditions aren't too bad here in Jordan, at least it's a little calmer than Egypt. The biggest dangers are the enormous number of unmarked speed bumps and the high probability of meeting a speeding car on the wrong side of the road.

Today's trip went well though. First we visited Little Petra, very much like it's larger cousin but . . . smaller! It was well worth a look in and best of all we had the place entirely to ourselves.

Next stop was Shobak Castle, a thousand year old desert crusader castle, which we were really disappointed with. It didn't even warrant leaving the car! We carried on up the Kings Highway to our next destination, Karak Castle. The scenery en-route was fantastic, very much like the Grand canyon in some places.

However we did have a bit of a shock when for the first time in 5 weeks some clouds appeared in the clear blue sky, horrifying!

It was too late for the castle by the time we arrived in Karak so we headed to the Kir Heres restaurant for tea. It was rumored in the Lonely Planet to be the only place in town serving alcohol. When we asked if we could have two beers the waiter looked at us as if we were very dubious and said yes but we had to move tables from the front of the restaurant to sit behind a curtain at the back to drink our beer! Not that we are alcoholics or anything but we do enjoy a beer at the end of a hard day's sightseeing. Alcohol is quite hard to come by in Jordan and is only served in a few restaurants and hotels. But now that it's Ramadan even most of these places won't serve it at the moment. We were reading in the Lonely Planet that in Pakistan in the 70's the only way to get a drink was to obtain a medical certificate from a doctor declaring that you were an alcoholic. Only with this certificate were you allowed to buy drink, so it could be worse!

Petra

History tells us that Petra is the location where in 1938 Indiana Jones found the holy grail, thus saving the world from Nazi domination. Or at least that's what anyone who grew up in the 70's or 80's has been lead to believe.

Petra was the capital of the Nabataean kingdom and was at its peak about 2000 years ago. The Nabataeans controlled the overland incense and spice routes that linked China and India to the Mediterranean. The profits and taxes that this generated funded the building of the city.

The city started to decline when the Red Sea route that harnessed the monsoon winds opened up, bypassing Petra. By the 11th century the city was lost to the West and remained that way until it was discovered by Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812.

Entrance to the city is gained via the Siq, a 1.2km long gorge with 80m high sandstone cliffs. The Siq starts off quite wide before it narrows to barely a couple of meters.

At the end of the Siq you get your first glimpses of the Treasury (Al-Khazneh), the most famous sight in Petra (and final resting place of the holy grail!).

The Treasury is believed to be the tomb for the Nabataean King Aretas III, who ruled during the first century BC. The whole building is carved out of the sandstone cliff and makes a truly spectacular sight.

Although Petra is most famous for the Treasury there's also a lot more to see. It's a vast complex that contains over 800 sites including more than 500 tombs and a Roman style amphitheater and colonnaded street.

There's also some incredibly strange shapes weathered into the surrounding sandstone.

The second most famous site is the Monastery (Ad-Deir). The Monastery is hidden high up in the mountains and is accessed via 800 steps hewn into the cliffs.

It was a fairly strenuous hike in the heat of the desert. You can get up to the Monastery on the back of a donkey but even Liz refused stating that there's no way an adult can look anything but undignified perched on the back of one.

We also got to see Petra by night, where the route through the Siq and the Treasury are illuminated with 1500 candles.

Madonna madness

After our first day exploring Petra we had a very narrow escape from being mangled by Madge.

Madonna was also (briefly) in Petra having popped over for the day from Israel where she is doing some concerts. We were trying to cross the road outside of the ruins and were nearly knocked down by her cavalcade as they whisked her away at high speed to her awaiting helicopter.

I swear that we're not making this stuff up! We didn't manage to get a photo as we were too busy trying to avoid being run over . . . But we can prove that she was here, have a look at this link.

Wadi Rum

Yesterday we left the "delights" of the Aqaba coast behind and headed for Petra, stopping en-route for a 3 hour detour around the desert at Wadi Rum.

Wadi Rum sprung to prominence for being the setting of T E Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, later filmed by David Lean as Lawrence of Arabia. It was here that Laurence fought with the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks during the First World War.

For the tour around the desert we left the comfort of our air conditioned taxi and jumped into what is probably the worlds most dilapidated Toyota Landcruiser. All of the interior, with the exception of the seats and steering wheel, had fallen off, most of the exterior was in a similar state and at random intervals the bonnet would open itself. The vehicle resembled one of those exploded views of a car that you get in a Haynes Manual. Best of all though was that every time we stopped (or the engine cut out) it could only be restarted by removing the gear lever from inside the car and using it to poke/batter something in the engine.

The desert scenery around Wadi Rum is just stunning.

The wind, sand and water (when it does occasionally rain) have sculpted the cliffs, mountains and canyons into some striking shapes.

As part of our tour we got to see the ruins of a 2000 year old Nabataean Temple, had a hike to a desert spring and got to climb some huge sand dunes.

The sand on the dunes was unbelievably hot, so hot that it melted the adhesive holding my shoes together. I think the heat had quite a strange effect on Liz too. Here, captured for the first time on camera, is the incredibly rare sight of Liz running!

Once Liz regained her senses we also got to explore Khazali Siq, a narrow fissure worn into the side of a mountain, and then headed for a clamber over one of the many naturally formed rock bridges.

Despite the cruddy nature of our 4x4 the tour had gone really well, that was until we got to the end. We then discovered why all of the interior had fallen off as our driver became possessed by an idiot and decided to head back through the desert flat out. We spent more time in the air than on the sand. It may have been an exciting experience if the driver had of looked remotely in control. As we hurtled our way back through the sand he decided to do a dangerous high speed swerve in order to try and deliberately run over a dog. This resulted in Liz flinging a volley of abuse at him and the loss of his tip.

Aqaba

We've spent the last 3 days at a place called Bedouin Garden Village which is about 12km outside of Aqaba city centre.

The Red Sea coast South of Aqaba is touted as another top place for some underwater acton. And it may have been if it wasn't for the hurricane force winds that swept down the coast from the dessert, it was like standing in a hot wind tunnel. Within minutes of getting out the sea you would be bone dry. The biggest problem with the wind was that it really whipped up the water which made maneuvering through the narrow coral channels quite difficult. We ended up only being able to go in once for fear of being grated on the reef. It was a bit of a shame because the sea was a lovely and blue

Other than snorkeling and diving there wasn't really a lot else to do there. You could sit on the beach, trying not to be blown away, but it was a all a bit desolate and fairly horrid.

We ended up having to spend most of our time by the pool of our hotel, at least we were more sheltered from the wind there. That did present us with another problem though. One of the hotel staff, who bore a bit of an uncanny resemblance to Borat, spent most of his time dribbling at Liz in her bikini. Nice!