Jordan: Amman to Petra

📌 We departed Luxor into Cairo where we seperated from the rest of the group as about 6 of us were going onto Jordan. We had a long wait at the airport but eventually made it into Jordan. A fun side note, 2 people were questioned by police as they had binoculars and they're banned in Jordan. Our first impressions of Amman were that it was a lot cleaner, more organised and upmarket compared to Egypt.

📌 Our first full day started with a visit to Jerash, an old Roman city, one of the best preserved outside of Europe. It was lovely to walk around and admire the columns and streets. Our next stop was the resort area on the dead sea, it was a very unique experience as it sits 300m below sea level and hence you could feel the air pressure and increase in temperature. It was a fun afternoon, it's impossible to sink in the dead sea as it's 32% salinity creates great buoyancy, you can float so easily. The salty water burned if it got in your eyes or nose, and it felt oily, our skin felt very nice afterwards, particularly as we did mud bathing in conjunction. Additionally, it was also eerie being in this region as you could physically see the west bank and Israel from our side of the dead sea, a no go war zone. We finished the day with some cocktails and even a brewery, some rare finds in an Islamic country.

📌 Day 2 started early and we headed to some old religious sites of the Byzantine Empire to check out some mosiacs and apparently where Moses had died, mount Nebo. We then headed to an old fort that was mainly occupied by the crusaders around 1100 AD, as they attempted to convert the region from Islam to Christianity. We then drove further south into the desert where we headed to little Petra, this was a beautiful time of the day and the rock formations were lovely in the afternoon light.Meer informatie