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Sunday 19th December Luckily, despite the early morning rain, we left Madaba with clear skies and bright sunshine. Today, the King's Highway was going to take us across the Wadi Al Mujib. This is, as the guidebook describes, Jordan's answer to the Grand Canyon. Even so, we couldn't believe the sheer scale of the task ahead of us as we arrived at its lip. The canyon is over a kilometre deep and 3 kilometres wide and the road takes 16km to wind down to the bottom, across the dam and up the other side. Luckily, Kate has no ability to picture distances, so had been blissfully unaware of what was to come. For once, she was totally and utterly gobsmacked and slightly unnerved by the climb (unusually for her!). It took us nearly half an hour just to get to the bottom, and then we sat in the now hot sun psyching ourselves up whilst munching on a chocolate bar. What we were about to do seemed crazy which was confirmed by the puzzled looks on drivers' faces as we started the first leg of the climb. In total, it took us an hour and a quarter of back breaking climbing in our lowest gear as the road twisted up the near vertical valley wall. We only had a couple of breaks along the way and were totally drenched in sweat when we finally reached the top. We've never been so happy to see the top as we were then. After a brief moment of self-congratulation and a thumb's up from a passing driver, we wearily picked up the road again. It was now 1 o clock and we still had over 50km to go. Sadly, it was from here that the problems started with the children and it became the worst 50km we had ever ridden. As we passed through villages, we were insulted, bombarded with stones, jumped out at and spat on. Kate received the worst treatment and was hit in the arm with a coil of rope which nearly caused her to crash, and had a young boy grab hold of her handle bars, desperately trying to make her fall off her bike. We also felt disappointed that when we approached adults about this (despite the language barriers) they appeared indifferent or even laughed. Not what we expected from what is supposed to be the friendliest country in the Middle East. We felt very saddened that children have tainted our experience of the country so much. We now no longer fear for what the weather is going to do but for what the children are going to do. On top of this, the riding was really tough as we had to climb more hills and so we were relieved when we finally climbed the impressively steep hill into the Crusader town of Kerak. The afternoon had been so incredibly tough, especially for Kate; Jordan seemed to have broken her usually strong mental state and brought her to tears. We found the Castle Towers hotel where we were warmly greeted by Semir, a friendly Egyptian who now works in Jordan. He invited us in for hot tea whether we wanted to take the room or not. We gratefully accepted, and there was no way we were going out and searching for another hotel after the day we'd just had. After settling in we went out for a meal in a local restaurant where we met Boris, a Swiss traveller who we got chatting to. He was also staying at the same hotel. Despite its relatively high price, the meal was pretty awful (how the Lonely Planet could recommend it, we don't know) but at least it filled a hole and we retired to our freezing cold hotel room feeling absolutely exhausted. Monday 20th December Our rest day in Kerak was pretty uneventful, wandering around the Crusader Castle and the steep streets of the town. Unfortunately, we still didn't feel that welcome, even without the bikes. This seems strange as everyone who wrote in the hotel guest book had nothing but praise for the friendliness of the local people. Perhaps this was just us. That evening, we again, spent with Boris, eating falafel and Schwarma at a local restaurant. The food was wonderful and for three of us, cost less than one person's meal the previous night. When we got back to the hotel, there was a group of three French people. We chatted to them for a while and they offered to take a small package of gifts we'd received along the way and send it back to the UK from France (thank you guys!). Tuesday 21st December We were up early the next morning, wanting to get as much mileage done before the children got let out of school....oh and the daylight hours are much shorter! Semir had said that there were few hills after Kerak and that it was much better to not stay in Tafila but to continue the 30 extra kilometres onto Dana. Almost immediately Semir's description of the road proved wrong as the first 2km of the riding were uphill, and this set the tone for the rest of the day, which was again horrendously hilly and tough going. There was yet another gorge cutting across our path, less deep than Wadi Al Mujib but requiring about 30km of cycling to get from one side to the other and most of this was uphill. The terrain has to be seen to be believed and is the toughest on the road so far. Even if we wanted to find a place to stay in Tafila the atmosphere was far from welcoming and made us want to push through as quickly as possible. Even after Tafila, we had some monstrous climbs and were still hampered by the occasional harassment from the local children. Eventually, we topped out on the escarpment overlooking the Dana Nature Reserve. The views down into the valley were incredible and the sight of Dana Village (our final destination) perched at the valley's head spurred us on. Semir had kindly phoned through to the Dana Hotel where they had a room ready for us. Boris was already here, having arrived by bus earlier in the day. The hotel is a collection of immaculate rooms centred on a little courtyard. It is run for the village cooperative by Suleiman and Miriam, an Indonesian woman. The Dana Hotel is a wonderful place to relax; they are really kind and hospitable and the food is exquisite and never seems to end. Pure Bliss! For the first time, when talking to Suleiman, we felt that someone was listening to our problems with the children. A friend of his from the tourist police even came round and took a statement off Kate. This might go some way to making the local authorities aware of the difficulties cyclists encounter in this part of the country. Even though we didn't like to complain, this was a huge relief. Dana is beginning to restore our faith in the Jordanian people. As we sit here on the rooftop of our hotel, all we can hear are a few birds, the occasional braying of a donkey and someone playing a pipe in the distance. It is extremely peaceful and a place we recommend. Wednesday 22nd December 3713.1miles, Dana, Jordan Sitting on the roof, watching the sun go down behind the mountains - a great end to a relaxing day. We've definitely needed it after the last few days. They've been incredible tough, both mentally and physically. As you've read, our experience in Jordan so far hasn't been as enjoyable as that of other travellers using other modes of transports. It seems that cyclists aren't as well received here as in Turkey and in Syria. This is mainly a problem with children and was mentioned in the guidebook but prior to travelling here we didn't think much of it. We didn't want to come into the country expecting the worst. As we discovered though, for reasons we haven't been able to establish, the children try their hardest to make cyclists feel as unwelcome as possible in their country. We found ourselves entering every village with a sense of dread, unsure as to what they might do this time. Also, every village seemed to be on an uphill stretch, making us even more vulnerable. Thursday 23rd December The 60km ride from Dana to Petra was actually really enjoyable. The road was a lot easier and there were far fewer hills to contend with. Decked out with red and silver tinsel and Father Christmas hats we were in high spirits and for the first time in Jordan felt truly welcome whenever we passed someone. Half way along the road we met up with Boris at Shobak castle where we spent an hour wandering the ruins enjoying the beautiful views spread out before us. After a cup of clove tea in a Bedouin tent next to the castle we retrieved our bikes and hit the road again. The road seemed to pick its way through the hills, leaving us with only a couple of climbs before the fast steep descent into Wadi Musa (the village next to the Petra site). Semir had also phoned his nephew who works in the Cleopatra Hotel so they were already prepared.....or should we say warned! Boris was obviously already here. We had dinner with him in the hotel followed by a dodgy DVD of Indiana Jones to set the scene for what we were going to visit the next day. Friday 24th December We got up early, eager to get down to Petra and find the Holy Grail....errmmm?? It was a leisurely brekkie and we got chatting to a French woman called Sophie and her 12-year-old son, Raphael. We arranged to meet up with them, her brother and his friend for a celebratory meal that evening for Christmas Eve. We find it strange here, in that everyone celebrates Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day itself but anyhoo! Without seeing it for yourself not many words could convey how amazing Petra is. Despite the dull damp weather, the vast collection of rock cut buildings and tombs were breath taking. Built out of sandstone the hundreds of layers of different coloured sand give the buildings a colourful marble texture. We covered as much of the ruined city as possible, seeing the famed Treasury (Indiana Jones) climbing up to the Monastery and walking a high level circuit involving lots of rock cut steps to the High Place of Sacrifice. At almost every turn we were confronted with offers of jewellery (always accompanied with "take a look" "nice price" "Happy hour"), lumps of Petra rock for 1 dinar and air conditioned taxis (donkeys). The horses and donkeys were definitely not treated in the way that we would expect in the western world, yet too many tourists condoned the neglectful, and often cruel, treatment of these animals. So, as you can guess, we walked! It was a pleasant Christmas Eve afternoon walking around with Boris, Sophie, Raphael and Sophie's brother, Jean-Paul and his friend, Phillip. We joined them again in the evening along with Janna, another French traveller, Mark from Montreal and Joachim, who'd motorbiked from Germany. We soon got into the festive spirit drinking Arak (you would not believe the hassle you have to go through to get some semblance of a reasonably priced alcoholic drink in Petra) and eating peanuts and fruit. After nearly a month of no alcohol, two admittedly large aperitifs left us slightly heady and red cheeked as we sat down for dinner. Sadly there was no turkey and roast potatoes and gravy. Instead we had chicken and rice again. It was good though, and somehow two bottles of red wine had been procured to wash it down. For dessert our French friends had found a huge green heart shaped cake, which was soon demolished. From here onwards the night got a little bit more strange, as Janna started to dance to the Arabic music. She soon had the male staff of the hotel falling over each other to dance with her and soon everyone was joining in. For us it was a pretty late night and we finally turned in at about 1 o clock - oh how we live life on the edge! Saturday 25th December 3744.7 miles, Petra, Jordan We two queens of Gondarlink are,
A map of wonder, a map of light
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! Hope you all got the pressies you wished for. We've got perfectly wet Christmassy weather for our second day here in Petra. So wet in fact that going down to the ruins would be miserable, so here we are having hand washed our grimy clothes and now writing our next diary instalment. But...we have just pulled our mini Christmas cracker..."What is Santa Claus' wife called? - Mary Christmas of course!" Kate's aunt kindly gave us this cracker before we left and Kate's carried it ever since in the bottom of her bag. Even though it was completely squashed and crumpled it still gave out a bang and we were really chuffed with it! The rest of Christmas day was pretty quiet, the highlight being the phone calls to our parents - we had a few tears from Katy - bless her! Thanks Mas and Pas for footing the bill! We thought you'd enjoy the Christmas pressie! Paul and Kate x
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Challoner's, Fasiledes, Amersham, Buckinghamshire