Tuesday 12th January - Feynan Lodge to Aqaba

We were sorry to be leaving the lodge, but not the mosquitoes which tried to find their way through the somewhat holey mosquito net each night.  We thought we had left mosquitoes behind in Turkey, sadly not.  We were also disappointed that it had clouded over and the lodge staff thought that it would remain like this for maybe three days; they hoped it would rain, as water is the one thing that Jordan needs most.

We kept to the back roads in order to cut through the mountains from Wadi Araba up to the plateau and Little Petra, then Petra itself.  The route must rate as our best drive so far, from the rock strewn plains with their acacia trees, through shattered, multicolour rock formations, along hairpin bends and finally up to the sandstone pillars outside Little Petra.

As its name suggest, Little Petra is like a taster to the main Petra site, being a trading and resupply point for the caravans visiting Petra and other Nabataean settlements.  There is a 400m long siq, a couple of temples, some dining areas, a cistern and drainage channels, as well as various rock cut steps leading to rooms dotted around the rock faces.  It certainly wetted our appetite for Petra, although I doubt we’ll have that to ourselves.

As we sat having lunch outside Little Petra and contemplated the cloudy weather, we decided to head down to Aqaba rather than to nearby Petra.  We’re hoping that the weather will clear in the next couple of days so that when we return we can get some glorious blue sky backgrounds.  We’ll go to Wadi Rum after Aqaba, then to Petra before heading to the Eastern Desert and the ruined castles on our way back north to Syria.

The two hour drive to Aqaba was a steady descent down the Desert Highway, with Aqaba itself the most western looking city we’ve seen in a while with shopping malls, Burger King and McDonalds, a “Friends” coffee shop and supermarkets.  The city is undergoing rapid development, as is the coastline of the Red Sea, in order to bring in tourist money.  We headed to the Bedouin Garden Village, with camping and chalets set around Dahab-style tents in which to chill out.  On route we spotted an overland German motorcyclist, so we thought we must be going in the right direction, and when we turned in to the campsite already parked up was one of the Islington Rascal Toyota Land Cruisers we had met in Aleppo almost a month ago.  The other Land Cruiser was in Amman, as one couple had flown to Australia for a friend’s wedding, and the partner of Marianna had flown back to the UK on business, leaving her alone for a week. 

We chatted about our respective experiences of Syria and Jordan, and Marianna passed on the coordinates of their Wadi Rum camping location, the name of a hotel in Damascus and also directions to the best supermarket in town.  In return we invited her to join us for dinner; this was before we found out she’s a bit of a foodie, having bought her chief’s knives with her, and is doing some food travel writing.  To be fair she said my pasta and sauce with fried courgettes was very nice; maybe she was just being polite. SPOT