dead sea to the red sea

Hi there,
We wanted to share our journey with our family and friends and this seemed to be the easiest way - so it isn't a proper blog as it's retrospective - but it's a way to let others see what we have done. I haven't done one of these before so please bear with me if it's a bit wonky! For some strange reason we thought it would be a good idea to cycle the length of Jordan for our honeymoon (Irbid to Aqaba)! And while we were at it to do it for charity, Wakefield Hospice. The journey started right in the North at Irbid and went all the way to the South, Aqaba at the top of the red sea. We passed the dead sea on the way, so the title of the blog isn't accurate, but sod it, it's quite catchy! Thanks to everyone who has sponsored us, we really appreciate it. Spin on down to read more of our adventure...

Arrived in Amman midnightish. After 4 hours sleep for me and fewer for Ian we were up early and out to see the ancient ruins of Gadara, a Roman city, at Umm Quais near the northern most city of Irbid.

The backdrop to the site was spectacular as we could see the contested Golan heights and the Sea of Gallilea not too far away. This part of Jordan borders with both Israel and Syria.
We then stopped for some lunch and to get sorted with our bicycles. Oh dear...not to put too fine a point on it the bikes were an appalling array of ancient, inappropriate and dangerous embarrassments to the name bicycle. Some of the bikes were children sized. Many of the bikes were full sussers with huge knobbly tyres. Two of the bikes were hardtails with no front suspension (better) although they should have been in a museum. Thank god Ian has good bicycle engineering knowledge. He started to check the bikes and as he gently waggled my front brakes they fell into the wheel (great stuff especially considering our ride started with a steep descent! eek!). My back brakes were no better. One side was clutching the tyre and the cables actually scraped the nobbles of the tyre! I could go on. Our hearts sank and we started to wonder how the heck we would ever get anywhere, nevermind cycle 450km in over 35C+ heat!

However, Ian stepped up to the mark. He forcefully expressed that the bikes were a complete joke. Other members of the group who know something about bikes were similarly unhappy. At this point the guide, Becky, did her stuff and demanded new bikes - 20 of which were to be delivered that evening!! Oh the relief. Brand new hard tail Giant mountain bikes! Such bliss - they had gears and brakes that actually worked! Panic over.

So we managed with the duff bikes for the afternoon ride to Wahadeneh (60km) but there was another shock in store. My god it was hot!! Far hotter than I expected. Unfortunately, the combination of a crappy bike, no acclimatisation to the heat, too much water which washed my salts out and little sleep led me to feel rather ill. Heat exhastion had come to visit. Nausea and feeling like I was on a boat in a heavy swell with no appetite. I had to force feed myself to keep up my strength and try not to retch - not like me at all!! I didn't even care that we had arrived at Ajiourn Castle too late to be let in. Even Sarah had thrown up while cycling, although being nails, she didn't even stop.

Ian was fine of course and he was great at looking after me. Even when I was having a bit of a panic and crying hysterically "I've ruined the honeymoon, I won't be able to carry on, It's all my fault for choosing this bad idea...etc"!! Lots of reassurance and hugs helped me to get some much needed sleep with fingers crossed that I would feel better for the following day....

After a good night's sleep and regular rehydration salts I was feeling more human, thank goodness, and ready for the cycle to the Dead Sea. We had a really cool descent to start with and continued our journey along the Quor Canal.

We followed mostly backroads with a couple of short off road sections, which were good for Ian and I. We were both surprised by how green the north of Jordan is, particularly in the mountains. However, it does receive a some rain when it's not summer and gets pretty cold in winter. Some higher parts get good amounts of snow too!

We were still in 'frontier' country and had a view of Israel as we were cycling. Thus, we had a police escort! The police 'interceptor' was cool, although after a while they had to change it to a different car as it didn't like going so slowly and used too much fuel! Here we can see Anna and Becky clearly impressed with it all...

We set off at 8am and the heat started to build mid-morning. Sarah and Angela gave me the best piece of advice ever. Using a head scarf soaked in water underneath the helmet. This saved me from the heat and kept me cool enough to complete the journey in good health and spirits. Hallelujah. (Thanks ladies!)

We stopped for lunch in the shade of trees. (This pic was taken by Vinny - who is writing an article for the Sunday Times about the trip.) The crew did a great job of setting up regular stops for water and food which were gratefully received! Particularly the boiled eggs and laughing cow cheese triangles.

Most of the people were incredibly friendly, including the (regular) military checkpoints, one of which handed out some sweets! Although it is quite scary to see very young looking men sitting atop a tank with ENORMOUS guns. A few of the team had stones thrown at them by young scallies - who were then given a big telling off by the crew, and one of them was even nearly run over by the chap driving the back up vehicle!

The journey to the Dead Sea Spa Hotel led us through some rock fall/land slides which were interesting features on the way and then onto more main roads, past the odd camel too.

The hotel was nice and we got down to the Dead Sea a.s.a.p. to have a float. It was a strange but pleasant sensation and memories of Jimmy Saville on the beginning of Jim'll Fix It were kindled! Sarah and Frasier didn't like it though - "it's greasy"! The water did have a particular feel on the skin because of all the minerals and salts. Wow, the lowest point on earth - 410m below sea level - that's 350m below the Channel Tunnel!

We set off from the hotel and cycled along the Dead Sea with the mountains of Israel in the distance. The sea has white patches on the shore which look like the wash has beaten up a foam although it's actually the salt deposits.

We briefly stopped at a Nature reserve within a gorge with a freshwater stream riverthrough the bottom. It's interesting to contrast attractions between Jordan and the UK. In Jordan people are expected to take responsibility for their own safety so there are no guard rails at the edges of precipices and no yellow tape on the edge of steps etc. We climbed down a slippy swimming pool type ladder into the river in the gorge which was refreshingly cold! At the end by the road there were repairs to the bridge which had been damaged by flash floods within the gorge - hard to believe on the day we were there. I think Frasier, in the orange top, was doing a bit of twitching here (or perhaps the YMCA routine?) - he even brought a birds of the middle east twitcher's handbook along which we borrowed later.

Unfortunately the heat claimed 2 more victims, poor Kathryn was quite sick and Nic felt too ill to cycle. Started to feel like an Agatha Christie novel we were dropping so fast!

However, the journey continued on past the end of the Dead Sea and through Jordan villages. We still had the police escort although some stones were still thrown - I wonder if the children weren't being malicious just cheeky and trying to attract attention. We stopped for lunch at a deserted villa and settled down to our boiled eggs and laughing cow in some welcome shade. We then continued to Kerak Castle built in 1132 which is shown above with Sarah and I making 'interesting shapes' as directed by Becky. We had a group shot shown below.

I forgot to mention we had the Jordanian Cycle Champion, Ahmed - lovely guy, with us who is on the back row not far from me and our local tour guide Abdouall is in the middle although not looking up!

Dana is a really beautiful place and we cycled around the top of the gorge to the opposite end. The landscape had started to become much more arid although apparently the location of the photo below receives quite a bit of snow which lasted for 70 days last year.

Ahmed also delighted in showing us a little lizard he had caught.

I felt like I had got into the groove of road cycling, as you may know Ian and I are mountain bikers who usually stay well away from roads and never do these sort of distances. However, I really understand the appeal of powering your way through many miles and working your way up a big climb, like mount Hishah below (about 1200m).

If you look to the left of Ian's elbow you can see the road we descended upon. That was such a fabulous road and so exhilirating. Ian and I became well known as the down hill speed freaks although Ian is much braver and faster than I am, even Ahmed couldn't catch him! Unfortunately poor Nic, who was still ill, had a nasty fall and was taken to see a doctor. Thankfully she was just bumped and grazed with a bit of shock too. The descent led us onto a beautiful approach to little Petra:

This was a wonderful surprise. The rocks themseleves were stunning, nevermind the carved bits of this small town.

It was also lovely to have the place to ourselves. I guess most people don't bother with this when there is the big Rose City of Petra (tommorrow) itself to see, however, we thought it was a little gem.

We then cycled onto Petra and were really happy to get to the hotel as it had started to get really hot. I also noticed how bad my salt addiction was becoming as I started to get really intense cravings for chips and crisps!

We had a much needed rest day from cycling although it we still seemed to end up feeling dead tired after walking around the Rose City and up mount Jebel Harin. The approach to Petra is atmospheric, through a deep narrow cleft through the rocks which culminates in a glimpse of the famous Treasury through the Siq which is particularly narrow.

The Treasury is as fantastic as it looks. It's about 55m high and just stunning. It's the best preserved part of the city as much of the other architecture has weathered.

I didn't realise just how big the city is. The Romans used it for a while and added an amphitheatre and various other things. The rock itself is amazing - it's highly patterned and coloured:

We had an effortful trek up Jebel Harin (1396m) as it was so hot. However, it was worth climbing 1,000 steps to see the monastery and views over Wadi Araba.

We were glad to get back to the hotel in the evening as we were dead on our feet. For some strange reason it had felt like much harder work than cycling and the first beer didn't even touch the sides!

We were very touched that the group had put some money together to buy us a bottle of fizz and a card to congratulate us on our honeymoon. It brought a tear to my eye (which will be no suprise to those of you who witnessed me crying all the way through my wedding!) and we would like to thank everyone again for their kindness.

This was the day when things started to get extra hot! The terrain became very dry although the desert seemed more rocky than sandy with lots of hilly bits for us to cycle up and down. The climbs were really hard work but the views were amazing:

As usual there was the slight headwind although in parts the air itself was incredibly hot - it was like riding while being blasted with an enormous hair dryer!

It was always good to see more camels too! They're such noble looking creatures. We stopped for lunch in the middle of some rocky peaks and found some shady shelter under a bridge built to carry the water away from flash floods - hard to believe given how roasting hot it was. We felt like refugees waiting for darkness to cross the border, although with much better food thanks to the crew who had excelled themselves with lunch. However, as the food was so good and we were so hungry it was quite difficult to get started again afterwards, especially as the first thing to do was another climb...The bedouin camp at Wadi Araba was such a welcom sight!

The tent was great and we all flopped and wilted as it was 37C in the shade. We had a walk to Robert's rock in the evening before the crew made a lovely dinner on the BBQ.

We slept fairly well, thanks to Frasier for giving me his spare pair of ear plugs, and woke at 5:30 to start our final day's cycling...

I don't think I have been up so early for so many days ever before although it worked very well to enable us to cycle in the cooler period of the day.

The cycle to Aqaba was relatively flat and we felt like the miles peeled off quite easily. The roads in Jordan were really good and the drivers were courteous, often giving a beep as they approached and pulling right onto the other carriageway around us. One car even took a photo of us as it passed! There were lots of huge salt trucks on the road and they were just as considerate. The landscape turned more sandy and flat, apart from the mountains on the horizon.

As Liisa said, the horse sees the barn door, and accordingly we all had a good pace into Aqaba. We arrived about noon and it had already become very hot.
We all cycled into Aqaba together and it felt great to have done the journey with such a nice group of people. Interestingly, Ian noticed that on one of our stops another Explore group also arrived. They were on a more usual tour by bus - and none of them spoke to each other. It made us really appreciate how our group seemed a lot more cohesive and friendly.

Thank goodness we arrived when we did as during the afternoon Aqaba got unbelievably hot - I have never been anywhere so hot - it was 40C. Even the shade was boiling! Ian and I went for a well deserved beer and overheard a group of Scots asking the waiter to read the tattoo in Arabic one of them had on his arm, a la David Beckham. He had it done in Glasgow. The others had a good laugh when it turned out it didn't say Christopher - doh! We then had a walk to the yacht club and around Aqaba.

We had a nice meal together in the evening with loads of olives, yum, to feed our salt addiction and retired for a well earned rest.

We had a rest day and spent some time at the Royal Jordanian Diving Club on the Red Sea. Here we mostly lolled around on the beach and did some snorkelling on the reef. It was actually lovely to lie around and do nothing for a change and Ian, Fraser and Sarah seem to be doing it very well in the photo, although we couldn't have done it for any longer.

We had an overall sense of well being and achievement with a bit of sadness that we would not be getting back on the bikes again and that we had said goodbye to the crew.

After lunch we flew back to Amman and had a final dinner at a lovely Lebanese restaurant. And for once there was a decent selection of vegetarian food for Angela and Jinny. Vinny did a fab speech after little warning that we had nominated him to do it - well he is a word smith so the obvious choice! I particularly liked the bit 'you wonder just how sloshed you were when you decided that this would be a good idea for a honeymoon!' Too right! (Anna, Simone, Jinny and Collette clearly enjoyed the speech too!)

We had already been told that Jordanian people are insulted if you finish a meal that they provide for you as they interpret it as not having provided enough food for you. The same principle seems to apply in restaurants as the portions always seemed big and as soon as we finished our bread it was immediately replaced. The Lebanese restaurant provided big enough starter portions to fill us up - meze with things such as fish balls, halloumi, lamb spleen and brain. Fraser went for the spleen, which was similar to liver, although no one was brave enough for the little grey cells! The mains were lots of grilled meat dishes and we rolled out feeling very full. I don't think I have ever eaten so much food in 10 days in my life although I must have burnt it off as amazingly I think I lost a little overall. It's been hard since we got back to resist eating piles of salt and the still huge appetite!

We had a few drinks and retired to bed to fly home in the morning. On reflection I think it was the most fabulous honeymoon and I feel lucky to have experienced a beautiful country populated with lovely people with a great bunch of fellow travellers. I will always look back on the trip with real fondness and would definitely do it all again.