PETRA & WADI RUM FROM AQABA BORDER

Wadi Rum has some of the most dramatic desert scenery in Jordan. It is a vast, timeless and starkly beautiful place where massive, uniquely shaped mountains rise out of the rose-red desert. A visit to the valley, which is best explored on camel back or by 4WD jeep, casts one back to a time when vast caravans of merchants plied the desert carrying spices and exotic goods from the Indies to the Mediterranean. The area is still the preserve of the Bedouins and their low black goat-hair tents can be seen dotting the landscape. During the First World War T.E Lawrence made his home in the valley. The extraordinary coloured rocks, celebrated tombs, and grand carved façades of the ‘rose-red’ city of Petra are among the world’s most impressive archaeological treasures. Ancient Petra was the capital of the Nabataeans, an Arab tribe who ruled a kingdom covering the greater part of Arabia. A shift in trade routes then led to the city’s demise, and for a thousand years Petra then lay forgotten to the West until rediscovered in 1812 by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. The site is approached via the Siq, a dramatic narrow gorge of striking beauty hemmed-in by cliffs up to 80 metres in height. After 1.5 kilometres, the stunning Treasury (Al Khazneh) emerges dramatically through a narrow gap in the rock.

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