The Sunday Times Travel Magazine
It was not how I had imagined a walking holiday. True, the waters were a little bit gloopy, but nevertheless: I was bobbing like a particularly contented cork in a luxury Dead Sea resort, cocktail at the water's edge, spa at my disposal and dinner at eight. Rather than lacing up a pair of sturdy boots ready to stride forth up hill and down dune, here I was, lazily watching the sun set over a distant Jerusalem skyline. If the rest of the trip was this cushy, I'd be worrying more about getting fat than getting blisters.
Not that I minded. A keen hiker at home in Britain, I'd never believed in walking as penance rather than pleasure. Why rough it in a cramped campsite or hearty hostel at the end of a long day's march, when you could be enjoying a steaming shower, excellent supper and downy bed? Others obviously agree - which is why I now found myself on this unashamedly upmarket walking trip, alongside fellow high-class hikers and our two guides, Daniel and Mahmoud, heading south from the Dead Sea along the ancient King's Highway. Most tourist coaches thunder along this historic route to reach Petra, entirely missing the spectacular and secluded gorge of the Dana Nature Reserve. But Dana was our destination for the night. And we were walking there.
Trekking through steep, terraced gardens of apricot, fig and pistachio, we joined a narrow path that clung to the rim of the ravine as a flock of griffon vultures drifted on the thermals above our heads. We peered, gingerly, into precarious caves where Christian hermits lived many hundreds of years ago, eschewing even the most basic physical comforts in their quest for spiritual perfection.
We weren't in the mood for much eschewing, but our dose of luxury was very different from the previous night's: perched breathtakingly at the head of the gorge, the Dana Guesthouse is carved from rustic stone walls, with simple modern furnishings and hand-woven kilims. As the sun dipped along the wadi, the only sound was goat bells carried on the wind. The accommodation at Dana may not be deluxe in the widescreen-TV-and-24-hour-room-service sense of the word - but, as Jordan's Queen Noor herself put it, the views are 10-star.
Leaving Dana next morning, we twisted down into the valley bottom, accompanied by two donkeys carrying our lunch, which we munched under the shade of a juniper tree. Here in this arid landscape the spring vegetation seemed even more verdant than in temperate Britain, an almost luminous green against the orange rock. Later, we were met by a posse of white-robed Bedouin drivers, red-and-white checked keffiyehs fluttering in the breeze. They transported us in their fleet of muscular 4WDs over the mountains to Taybeh, and our next hotel.
Taybet Zaman is an entire Ottoman village restored and converted to a five-star hotel with the narrow streets now open-air corridors, and the old, cave-like houses now bedrooms, furnished in a style best described as 'Bedouin chic'. Dusty and tired after the day's trek, I ventured cautiously into the hotel's hammam, a traditional north African bath complex, where I was steamed, scraped and massaged for little more than the price of a lemongrass tea in your average spa hotel. I wanted to be well rested in preparation for what lay before me the next day.
Nobody forgets their first view of Petra, but ours was even more memorable than most: we glimpsed the 'rose-red city' not through the deadening Plexiglas of a tour bus window, but from high on a hilltop a day's walk from Taybeh.
As we gazed down at this vast, antique, magnificent metropolis, so long hidden from the world, there wafted from a nearby mountain the timeless trill of a Bedouin piper, shepherding his goats. Early next morning, long before the coaches disgorged their clamorous cargo of day-trippers into Petra, we walked in awed silence along the Siq, the narrow canyon snaking into the ancient city, to emerge at the Treasury. It looked, I thought, just as it must have done the day it was sculpted from the rock 2,000 years ago. And it rips your breath from you.
When we finally left Petra, three days later, it was by road, and in the company once more of our Bedouin chauffeurs. We paused for a last panoramic view of the city from above before joining the Desert Highway heading south. After a while we plunged headlong into the spectacular desert scenery of Wadi Rum, a landscape famously described by Lawrence of Arabia as 'vast, echoing and God-like', with its great swathes of apricot and rose sands, encircled by towering pinnacles of wind-scoured rock.
Waiting for us were camels, their bellows echoing around the canyon as we rode, balanced high above the dunes. Arriving at our overnight camp in the heart of the wadi we found our tents already pitched, and equipped with proper beds, sheets and blankets. As night fell, our Bedouin hosts lit candles in the sand, and we ate supper around a scented fire listening to Arabic poetry and the mournful music of the lute-like oud. We stared up at the Milky Way, and realised we were staying in a million-star hotel.
The following afternoon our jeeps returned for the final leg to Aqaba.
When, in 1917, Lawrence joined the charge to capture the fort here, it was little more than a simple fishing village; now it's a 'proper' Red Sea resort, with coral reefs to rival those of nearby Eilat and Sharm el-Sheikh. Caked in a thick layer of desert sand, I dived straight from the private beach of my luxury hotel into warm, clear waters. Here I floated, less buoyantly than in the Dead Sea, watching the sun set over the Gulf of Aqaba. It was just how I imagined wrapping up a two-week walking holiday in Jordan.
FACT FILE
ATG Oxford (01865 315678, www.atg-oxford.co.uk) offers a 13-day walking trip in Jordan for £3,375, which includes transfers, accommodation, meals and the services of two tour leaders. The trip comprises eight days of walking, plus optional camel riding.
Accommodation is mostly in five-star hotels, with one night spent at a camp in Wadi Rum. Flights to Amman with Royal Jordanian Airlines (020 7878 6300, www.rja.com.jo) cost from £379 return, departing Heathrow.
