Category: 2019-07 US Jordan

The Dana Tower Hotel spoiled us with a wonderful view at breakfast. Then we drove further along the road to our today’s accommodation Hotel Cleopetra in Wadi Musa. The hotel manager gave us the tip to visit first Little Petra/Siq al-Barid and in the evening the Petra by Night light show. Little Petra ( is about 10 minutes by car from Petra. An archaeological site or a “suburb” of Petra, the Nabataean capital. A temple and buildings carved into the walls of the sandstone gorge. Water channels that filled the cisterns have been cleverly carved into the walls. A dining room (biclinium) is decorated with relatively well-preserved wall paintings. Traders – caravans on the Silk Road could rest here and replenish their supplies. A few souvenir stores are built distributed in the gorge, which is about 350 meters long.

In the afternoon we rested in the hotel room and at just before 20:00 we went to the treasure house of Petra. The Siq, the 1.5 km long canyon to the treasure house and the square in front of the treasure house, was illuminated with over 1500 candles. The candles are in paper bags. A very beautiful atmosphere. In the square in front of the treasure house, carpets are laid out to sit on and there is a cup of tea. A singer, a flute player and a storyteller (English) offer a nice program.

Since the acoustics are very bright, the only thing that disturbs a bit is the babbling of some people (e.g. the police officers on the sidelines, who must have seen the screening several times before, so they were more likely to tell each other jokes). However, the overall experience was nice and pleasantly designed. We didn’t need a flashlight for the way back either, as the moon and candles lit the way well. By the way, Indian Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed here.

Silke

In two of the four occupied tents small scorpions came to visit tonight. Fortunately not to us. They did not hurt anyone either. With us rang at 6:00 the alarm clock and we looked again at the great view of the Rummana Campsite (a former Bedouin camp) an. After a quick breakfast, the staff drove us to the park entrance to our car, with which we then drove 20 min further to Dana GuestHouse, the trail entrance. We left the car there and started hiking.

The first part was quite downhill and after about 1.5 km I noticed that I got pain in one toe. I stupidly ran a blister. Although the shoes are actually well broken in and I had the whole year nothing like that! Well, now for a while with plaster. The 14 km hiking trail could be run but otherwise wonderful. Mostly along the currently dried out river bed and through gorges that always offer new beautiful views. Very pretty are the plants that grow in the riverbed, such as pink oleander.

In animals we saw a few lizards and many goats with herding dogs and some donkeys. When we reached our destination, Feynan Ecolodge, at 2:00 pm, the thermometer showed 36 degrees in the shade. We had booked a return transfer for 3:00 pm at Rummana Camp, but it did not arrive until 4:00 pm. The car was boiling hot and the driver spoke no English or German. He was probably not properly informed, because he drove us to the wrong place. For the normally 120 km and 2-3 h distance we needed thus 3.5 h. In addition, he refueled twice on the way, talked on the phone almost the whole time and picked up another passenger from the roadside. We were totally sweaty and quite annoyed when we finally reached Dana Guesthouse at 19:31. Our today’s accommodation, the Tower Hotel was fortunately only 500 m away from the parking lot. First we watched the beautiful sunset before checking in. We got a simple double room with bathroom and for dinner at 8:30 pm the host and his wife cooked an extra vegetarian component to the Arabic dinner. We ate together with the other guests on the roof terrace and even got a nice serenade with drum accompaniment. Our blog page is not visible today and Reiner is trying to fix that from here, but has no success so far.

Silke

We started south from Amman after breakfast! In a supermarket we bought a few groceries. We were amazed at the 3kg jar of Nutella that was on the shelf there for about 25 EUR! The Jordanians apparently like to snack. The staff was very friendly and offered us peaches, coffee and pumpkin seeds to try. We will not starve here! After that we refueled and drove to Dana. On the way we were waved out by a police control. But the policeman just wanted to talk to us a little bit and then wished us a nice time in Jordan. At Rummana Campsite we sleep in a solid tent with two mattresses..

We had our yogurt with oatmeal and banana for dinner. Afterwards, we wandered around the abstract rocky landscape for a bit.

While drinking sweet peppermint tea and having a campfire, the Jordan National Park staff told us some more stories about the people from the village and the Prophet Mohammed and his 10 wives. Currently, 4 wives are actually allowed here at the same time. But not four husbands ! (The Jordanians speak very good English, by the way).

Silke.