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By Peter Duncan Bahrain Tribune 24 September, 2004
While observing the natural world there are certain moments when all conversation stops and you are astonished at what is before you.
On this trip ours came high over Wadi Rum where the desert vista seen from our balloon at 5,000 feet seemed to test our perception of reality. On the ground it appears as an unearthly landscape, like a piece of the moon that has broken off, but here from our silent floating craft, the craggy, vertical rockfaces jutting out from the gentle sand dunes merged into one.
Our reverence was broken by a skydiver, who had hitched a lift in our balloon, as he had decided this was his moment to leap. Within seconds, he disappeared into the mural of rock and sand until his canopy opened and he drifted to the earth. Our moment of destiny was upon us, too. With only three of us aboard, the former world champion pilot told us we were too lightweight for a smooth landing and the basket would be dragged horizontally – “part of the fun, but hang on”, he said. I was torn between wanting to protect my son, Arthur, and filming his reaction, but somehow managed both.
Once on the ground, Mazied, our Bedouin guide, took us back to the village of Rum where he lives with his wife and six children.
Many of the Bedouin with families now live close to schools, electricity and running water, and only venture out to their desert tents occasionally.
As we long to be beside the seaside, the Bedouin long for nights under the stars tending their goats and camels; however, a four-wheel drive makes it much easier to get there. As Arthur and I were looking for a real desert experience, Mazied and the whole family treated us to a weekend of Bedouin life. A goat had been bought for $50, an attractive plump animal with curly ears, which was to be our special feast. This required a skillful slaughter by Mazied in his makeshift abattoir, and the death, skinning, degutting and final eating of the little beast was in Arthur’s words “interesting and disgusting”.
The next day we visited a very old Bedouin man who remembered Lawrence of Arabia fighting with the Arabs against the Turks during World War I. He also told us of Bedouin law and how recently when one man had killed another and was caught, his relations, all 100 of them, had to pack up and leave the area perhaps never to return. Arthur also spoke to 16-year-old Thoreya, a girl who had learnt perfect English from all the tourists she had met. She showed him some ancient inscriptions and warned him of dangerous snakes that lurk in crevices.
And she was right. Later in the day as we climbed through a canyon to reach a peak to watch the sunset, we saw a cobalt blue-grey viper slithering away to hide under a rock. It was probably more frightened of us than we of it, but all the same it was deadly.
That evening, Arthur and I were left alone by the campfire as the family returned to the village. As we contemplated where we were in the world – Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, Israel to the west – it all seemed far too peaceful here. Jordan is part of the Holy Land where Islam and Christianity began. Jesus and Mohammed might have slept in this very spot. It is also where Richard the Lionheart fought in the crusades. And yet in the silent, timeless desert none of the conflict that surrounded us, both past and present, made any sense.
At dawn the next day, we set out on a mini expedition in search of evidence of ancient civilisations, our progress tempered by stomach gripes, the result of the previous day’s feasting. We found nothing of human remains but did come across an extraordinary rock archway formed by the wind and sandstorms over thousands of years.
By midday, we had left the desert and were travelling in our hire car to the coastal resort of Aqaba, the only place in Jordan on the coast. If you come here, a dive on the coral reef is almost obligatory and worth the effort, even if you have never dived before.
Our next destination was the ancient city of Petra, built in 400BC by the Nabataeans, an industrious Arab race who dominated the trade routes of ancient Arabia. The archaeological remains begin at the end of a Siq, a long narrow gorge, and the first glimpse of the Treasury, a temple carved out of the rockface is genuinely breathtaking. In Arthur’s eyes, its status increased by the fact that Indiana Jones escaped many well laid traps to reach here in Raiders of the Lost Ark. As with Machu Picchu in Peru, Petra was a lost city until someone from “the West” discovered it.
The number of visitors to Jordan’s most popular tourist site rise and fall depending on the various skirmishes taking place on the country’s borders. But this is a peaceful country and it is quite safe to travel independently and make your own travel arrangements – although it may be worth finding a tour operator to book a hotel for you as they can often negotiate a better rate.
We made our way to the lowest place on the earth’s surface; that is, the lowest point below sea level, which also happens to be a sea. It is one of those facts everyone seems to know – you can float in the Dead Sea.
The good thing about travelling with a 12-year-old is that they don’t know everything and this was a novelty to be exploited. In countless television programmes the “classic shot” is the presenter reading the newspaper while floating. Unfortunately, Arthur could only find a copy of Le Monde.
Apart from one night of luxury in the new Marriot resort hotel overlooking the Dead Sea, the rest of our time was taken up with flying visits to: Mount Nebo, where Moses is buried; Madaba, where the mosaics come from; Amman, the capital and an affluent Middle East city with thriving markets and plenty of history.
There are many other interesting places to visit – Jeresh, for example, in northern Jordan, one of the best preserved Roman towns in the world. If you hire a car, the King’s Highway - the main road running through the country – is dotted with crusader forts, and the road to take if heading south. If you are returning to the capital and looking for spectacular scenery, take the road in the far west of the country that leads to the Dead Sea.
Jordan is a friendly country, perhaps the legacy of King Hussein who was always striving for peace and promoting reasonable human behaviour. By all accounts his son King Abdullah II is doing a good job, too. It is also a great destination for a school or cultural group looking for a mix of adventure, natural history and hands-on educational discovery.
Arthur has travelled a lot and like every young person wonders about the mystery of his existence; he has seen many people praying to all kinds of Gods and yet the world is still full of atrocities, sometimes in the names of those Gods. Jordan is, geographically at least, in the eye of the storm – a good place to contemplate the meaning of life.
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