We have been away for a week of exploring the Kingdom of Jordan. Couldn’t afford to go away for any longer, so rather than a relaxing holiday in one of the beach resorts, we did our thing. Namely, we hired the sh*ttiest car in the world (1.1l Tata Zest) and drove up and down this incredibly interesting, strangely beautiful, crazy, dusty, mountainous, and very welcoming country.
What we loved: Wadi Rum.
The desert. We both instantly fell in love with the forbidding cruelty of this place. Never thought that such universal and ultimate hardship could be this beautiful. The relentless heat and the rarity of rain make it an incredibly hard place to live in. And yet, Bedouin tribes still do. We’ve seen trees and shrubs clinging to impossible rocks, flowers, butterflies,birds and bats. Nature has just blew my little mind again. I loved feeling tiny in front of massive rock formations, and tracking scorpions and centipedes on the sand.
What we hated: Animal abuse and child labour.
There’s no easy way to say it. It is disgusting, but the place with the most serious breaches in human and animal rights in Jordan is Petra.
I wanted to see the ancient city since I first saw it on telly as a kid. And as much as it was stunning, and more impressive than any documentary could ever make it, if we’d known how it was run, we would not go. It is classified a one of 7 wonders of the world, but UNESCO should take the status from the site or impose serious restrictions and controls. I don’t want to go into too much detail, as it might be triggering for some, but if you chose to go, I beg you, walk, don’t ride in carts or on donkeys.
What we’ve learned:
How welcoming Muslims are if you respect their culture. I even got invited to join a Koran reading in the Sharif Hussein Bin Ali mosque in Aqaba, after which I got to chat with local women (using our phones and gestures and maybe 10 English and 5 Arab words in total). A beautifully awkward, humbling and heartwarming experience of building connections over gardening, cooking and philosophy.
What we brought back:
A giant loofah, Bedouin tea, few loc spices and a great deal of new ideas for dishes inspired by our adventure.