Jordan: a land so near, and yet so very far. Most people will tell you that Jordan does not deserve more than two weeks. After you've seen Petra and Wadi Rum and avoided Amman and done Jerash, well, the rest is history. We, however, had the great fortune of spending one month in Jordan and taking our time, really letting it sink in.
For a native English speaker, the deserts of Jordan are alive still with the voices of T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia; and indeed, in Akaba - the first town in Jordan he liberated during the Arab revolt against the Ottomans, we broke down and bought his book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom. And so it was together with Lawrence, that strange out of tune voice, Lawrence - tower of courage and involvement; Lawrence tortured and afraid ... it was with Lawrence that we travelled.

This cannot be a chronological telling of our trip. Jordan blew all my fuses as far as time is concerned, and when I try to put our travelling through Jordan into some kind of order, the whole thing comes out all wrong. This is possibly because we first entered the country in Akaba, the southern port and headed north, only to be beaten back by the bad weather to Akaba where we camped with Beduins for a week on the shores of the Red Sea.
We then headed north again, going through Amman to Jerash and eventually left the country at Sheik Hussein into Israel at Bet She'an. Many places we saw twice and some, like Wadi Rum, much more profoundly than the first time. The whole thing has melted in my mind like a warm mosaic.

Maïr and Marie-Do