Jordan was a top secret mission for Pete and I telling only our siblings before heading to the Middle East. This add-on to our trip came about when our friend Henry had booked and planned a trip to Jordan, our other friend Bridgette living in London jumped on board and so did we. Having minimal knowledge about Jordan as a country there was quite a bit of Wikipedia and blog searching before we flew out of Rome. The four of us met in Amman the capital of Jordan where we stayed in the down town area. We all met up the following morning after arriving on late evening flights, mostly half full planes.

Day one in Jordan we came to the realisation very quickly that we were more than welcome in this beautiful country, the people went out of their way to say hello and show us their city, the standard line was “Welcome to Jordan”. Being a Muslim country Bridgette and I thought it wise to wear rings on our wedding fingers in case we were questioned, although the first Jordanian Bridge met on her flight over just laughed at her. We spent the day roaming around down town Amman visiting the Roman amphitheatre and the Jordanian museum that even had an exhibition featuring World War One Australian Army gear, curated by the Council for Australian-Arab Relations. We also saw the famous dead sea scrolls which got the boys excited about searching for treasure. After the Museum we headed back down the street where Bridgette and I stopped in for a quick shop a.k.a. looking in an Arabian wedding dress shop, the shop owner let us try on some dressed before wanting some pics with us, a lot of laughs had by all.

We found our way to a famous street food restaurant which has even served the King and his family. We had our first of many feasts of hummus, pita bread, cucumber, tomato, falafel and olives, with some mint tea to accompany the lunch it was perfect.

After lunch we made our way up to the Amman Citadel that pre-dates the Roman era but has obviously been built on many times since, with an amazing view over the city it was only fitting to have a call to prayer sing out as we were on top overlooking all the mosques, it was a little eerie. As we were about to leave and head back down the hill we met a taxi driver called Walheed who apparently was number one taxi driver in Amman, Henry couldn’t find him on trip advisor as he claimed but we won’t hold that against him. For a minimal fee he took us on a ride through the city to two different mosques, one where we were able to go inside once Bridgette and I had Burkas on. He explained the prayer process and the layout of the mosque which was pretty interesting, basically the women are separated from the men so the men don’t get distracted during prayer or at least that’s how I interpret it. After the Mosque he dropped us back at the citadel for sunset before we made our way back down town.

That night we went out in search of the famous Jordanian dish called Mansaf which is Lamb or chicken cooked in a sauce of fermented dried yogurt and served with rice and a dish of the fermented yogurt to pour over. Some liked this more than others but it was definitely different for the taste buds.

That night we went to the west side of Amman where we found a few rooftop bars and where the other half live. Bridgette got us an invite to a pre-wedding party at a bar close by from her friend she met on her flight to Jordan. We arrived in our modest culturally sensitive clothing only to find the girls in amazing skimpy dresses, as we didn’t realise it was a Christian wedding and not a Muslim one, with an open bar and a lot of new people to chat to it was a great night all around.

The next morning we dusted ourselves off and got ready for a long day of road tripping, with Henry as skipper, Pete as Nav and Bridge and I as back seat drivers we were off to tackle the Jordan Highways. The Jordanians are pretty fast and loose when it comes to lanes and they don’t ever look behind so I think Henry took this on board and went for it, no looking back. We made our way north and stopped for a quick photo opp at the Syrian turn off, we actually did take this right as we were heading to Jerash but didn’t quite make it to Syria. Jerash is home to an ancient Roman city that was way better preserved than the Roman Forum we had just seen in Rome. We also found our traditional head wear in Jerash that we wore basically the entire trip.

We were back on the road with a few hairy moments over the mountain crossing as we made our way to the Dead Sea. We bobbed around for a few hours and took many photos floating in the salt before washing off and hitting the road for Aqaba. As we drove to Aqaba we followed the Dead Sea and kept an eye on Israel as the Jordanians were doing with the many watch towers and machine guns along the way.

The next day we were up early and made our way to the ancient city of Petra. We began wandering along a narrow meandering gorge with all the other tourists, dodging horse-driven carts and mules along the way, eventually the rocks opened up and we were confronted by the famous Treasury of Petra. This ancient building carved directly into the cliff face has to be one of the most impressive buildings we have seen on our trip so far. After spending a while at the Treasury we moved deeper into the ancient city where we would end up spending hours hiking over the surrounding hills discovering cave upon cave. It is easy to see why Petra is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the scale of the city was overwhelming, everywhere we hiked and looked we would find even more caves and intricately carved tombs. We finished up our day on top of the hill overlooking the narrow gorge where we began walking into the city, watching the sun going down before heading back to Aqaba on one of the most hair-raising drives of the trip – If we thought Jordanian driving was crazy by day it got even crazier at night.

The next morning it was another early start as we made our way out to Wadi Rum, a protected desert wilderness in southern Jordan. We met our guide in the town of Wadi Rum before leaving our car and jumping on the back of a 1980s Landcruiser and heading into the majestic sandstone mountains of Wadi Rum. We had another two in our tour group, Anne-Maree and Chris from Brisbane who being close to all our parents’ age became Mum and Dad for the weekend, it was quite fitting as they had four kids and they were similar ages to us so we had name changes and had some great family pics together. We had a long day exploring the desert including looking at ancient cave drawings, climbing mountains, desert springs, natural mountain bridges and sunset views on top of a mountain. When we arrived at camp we were blown away with the facilities, great beds, running water, huge common area and an amazing chef… what more could we ask for? The boys went out for some night photography as we retired to bed for the evening.

We woke to a mountain directly behind us with the morning sun hitting the surrounding mountains and the red dirt. We were off for another day of desert exploring that took us all the way to a close-up view of the Saudi border. Our guide Saba showed us their watch towers through binoculars. We made a few jokes about behind invaded and making our Tomorrow when the War Began strategy, our guide was pretty great playing along with our games. The boys made themselves pretty on one of our stops as Bridgette applied some traditional eyeliner (called Kohl) using charcoal to their eyelids. They looked kind of ridiculous but we all had a great laugh and a few photos were taken. That night we were back at camp for a traditional Wadi Rum dish similar to the New Zealand Hāngi, called a Zarb, in which they use an earth oven and place a large pot on submerged hot coals and then bury everything. This would have to have been our top rated meal in Jordan, the flavours were amazing and the chicken was so tender.

As our Desert experience came to an end we had one last thing to tick off which was camel riding, we rode for two hours back to the town of Wadi Rum which was at times becoming increasingly uncomfortable for some. We made it and were all pretty happy to be off the camel and walking again, needless to say there were a few sore people over the next few days. We said goodbye to our guide Saba before hitting the road back to Amman. We made it thanks to Henrys amazing driving, although if he drives like he did in Jordan back in Perth he could expect a few infringements.

We had a last lemon and mint juice together before saying goodbye to Henry that night and Bridgette, Pete and I sorting ourselves out for early departures in the morning. We highly recommend Jordan as a tourist destination, the sites are endless and the people are great.