Sunday 10th January - Karak to Feynan Lodge, Dana Nature Reserve

Another 1300m descent to the Dead Sea down Wadi Karak bought us out near the attractively named Potash City, producer of Jordan’s most valuable commodity, potassium chloride, through solar evaporation of the Dead Sea waters.  Huge piles of discarded rock salt create an undulating landscape, which gives way first to proper desert sand (we saw our first dune, albeit only a small one) then fields of tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, potatoes and banana and date palms.

We made a minor detour off the Dead Sea Highway to visit Lot’s Cave, set in the hillside overlooking the valley.  Lot was the nephew of Abraham, his wife turned to a pillar of salt after looking back at the destruction of Sodam and Gomorrah, and was seduced by his two daughters, resulting in the birth of his sons/grandsons Moab and Ben-Ammi; nothing like a good Biblical story about incest.  Our initial disappointment at the site being closed for renovations (and like good English tourists we obeyed the sign and turned around to leave) was short lived as a man was walking up from the under construction museum to escort us around the site.  He jumped on the back of the Land Rover and hung onto the ladder whilst we drove back up the bumpy track.  There isn’t really a lot to see (pardon the pun), just the cave and remains of a small Byzantine church and water cistern, although once the protective roof over the church has been completed, its mosaic will be uncovered and on display. SPOT

Feynan Eco-lodge was about an hour’s drive further down the Dead Sea Highway, with the turn off from the main road marked by an army checkpoint.  It’s then about 20km along the back roads through Bedouin communities before hitting a 4WD track for the last 7km; you can get ferried to the lodge by a local Bedouin pickup truck, but we had no problem in the Land Rover.  The lodge itself is nestled into the bottom end of a wadi, with little around but the odd Bedouin tent and goats.

We were shown to our room in the adobe brick lodge which was lovely and cool, whilst outside in the sun it was baking hot.  We had lunch on the balcony before we set about the serious task of relaxing for the afternoon.

We were the only guests on the sunset hike, organised by the lodge.  Our guide was a local Bedouin, Ali, who has only recently joined the lodge, and he took us a mile or so to a lookout spot over the surrounding plain.  He left us to enjoy the sunset whilst he made sweet tea, flavoured with rosemary.  On the way back he took us to his family’s camp near the lodge where his father lives with two of his wives (his third wife lives in the nearby village).  Ali is one of 11 children, although times are changing and he says he’ll only have one wife (“In sha’ Allah”) as it is now too expensive to have more. SPOT

It was a nice insight into the Bedouin way of life, but we couldn’t stay long as we had to get back to have diner by candlelight (being eco, the lodge only has electric lighting in the bathrooms).  A wide selection of vegetarian dishes were on offer, with wafer thin Bedouin bread to accompany them; delicious but expensive, so we’d only booked the evening meal for one night and we’ll fend for ourselves tomorrow.