Pedalling THROUGH HISTORY
On a nine-day cycle journey through Jordan, Eleanor Hughes finds parched land patchworked with a rich tapestry of history.
Jerash, built by Romans in the 1st century AD is littered with ruins; 18m-high Hadrian’s Arch built to celebrate the Emperor’s visit, temples, theatres, plazas, a column-lined cobbled street, church floors featuring faded mosaics, a hippodrome where chariots once raced. From the Upper Temple of Zeus, the sprawling site is breathtaking.
It’s just a taster of Jordan’s many ancient sites I discover cycling and driving across this brown land.
South-eastwards to the Dead Sea we drive through Mediterranean, semi-desert and arid climates, and cycle alongside highway from Christ’s baptism site. We later float in the Dead Sea’s warm salty water which leaves skin feeling silky. It’s the world’s lowest point, 427m below sea level.
Mt Nebo is where Moses apparently saw the Promised Land. I see a hazy, forever brown landscape broken by Jordan Valley’s smattering of greenery and the Dead Sea. On Mt Nebo’s summit, the Moses Memorial Church is built around 530AD floor mosaics. Depicting camels, zebras, lionesses, horses, bears and hunting scenes, they’re a picture book of ancient times.
The day’s undulating, 42km ride is through a rural, dusty landscape strewn with discarded plastic. Olive trees grow in lines, pine trees are sporadic, cactus limp. Minarets jut above square concrete brick and plastered homes cluttering small villages; grass isn’t seen.
Shaggy sheep, or goats, are fenced nearby a sole, makeshift tent in the patchwork brown countryside. Spectacular dirt mountains rise and fall, wavy lines ripple their faces, the Dead Sea beyond still hazy. In Arabic, Jordan is known as al-Urdunn, the rugged, tough land. I see why.
Ancient caves gash mountain bases on the swoop downhill to Mukawir castle lookout, home to Herod the Great. Two columns atop the hill it’s perched on are all that are visible until I ascend it. I wander among ruins of baths, stone walls and a deep cistern, imagining Salome dancing for Herod Antipas and subsequently John the Baptist’s beheading.
A 3.5-hour drive through a landscape ranging from orangey red to beige follows. It’s not until morning that I spot Shobak Castle atop a hill. Built in 1115 by Crusader King Baldwin I, arrow slits in watchtowers look out over parched countryside and abandoned stone houses inhabited until quite recently. There are round stones destined for catapults, a church apse, ceiling blackened by fire, wells, a baptistery, remains of rooms.
The day’s 35km ride undulates to reach a lookout hemmed by craggy mountains which fall steeply away to a distant red-tinged plateau. Northwards, what appear to be rolling sand dunes are probably dirt hills. We ride a stark terrain smattered with villages; children wave from schools.
I grit teeth ascending The King’s Highway, riding towards camels crossing the road. They’re long gone by the time I reach the spot. Eventually, we’re rewarded by a view of far-below flat land splattered with giant, pinkish-orange sandstone mounds, like putty blobs piled upon each other. We whizz down into it on a zigzagging road and lunch in the shade of dwarfing, orange cliffs where wild onion plants’ green spikes are vivid in the red dust.
A 400m corridor between sandstone cliffs an arm’s span wide opens to reveal Little Petra. A temple, two smooth columns from ceiling to floor at its façade, is carved into towering, red cliffs. A chiselled-out room’s ceiling is decorated with faded frescoes of flowers and vines. There are cisterns, water channels, stairs cut into rock. A hub on the trading route circa 1st century BC, it takes only 30 minutes to explore.
Petra takes a lot longer. In shadow, I walk a 1.2km twisting passage (Siq) between 200m-high sandstone cliffs swirled fawn, pink, yellow, black and orange, the cloudless sky above a mere slit at times. Rounding a bend reveals a sliver view of a pale rose artwork; carved figures on two levels between rounded columns. The Siq ends at the iconic image of Petra, The Treasury.
Encircled by rust red cliffs, the Nabateans’ intricate carving is a tomb, a temple … maybe a calendar. Whatever it is, it’s astonishing.
More spectacular carvings follow along the Street of Facades. The steadily climbing path to the High Place of Sacrifice, where animals were slaughtered, reaches a point looking over part of the vast 264sqkm that Petra covers.
Mountainsides are carved with thousands of tombs and temples, some more visible than others. We walk a peaceful valley to explore some, return to the more visited Royal Tombs high on a cliff face and I take 800-odd steps to reach the Monastery, the oldest monument – built in the 3rd century BC, surpassing the Treasury in size. Nine hours after arriving, I leave this extraordinary Unesco World Heritage site exhausted.
There are tough ascents on the cycle from Little Petra towards Aqaba. I race a skinny-legged donkey, its Bedouin rider’s legs wrapped around its belly. After overlooking the vast, setting-sun-hued Jordan Valley, I whizz down a zigzagging descent to ride its flat, pale landscape of orange and yellow with touches of green. Camels wander the barren land, lush tomato plants surprise.
We drive a highway into modern Aqaba and later
snorkel over coral and tropical fish in the Red Sea.
On a 35km ride, after quiet roads, we hit soft sand which ensures a sudden stop. We walk, ride hard sand, ride hard-packed dirt, then a long, slow, slightly ascending road to Wadi Rum village. I nearly quit under a beating sun.
On the back of bouncing 4WDs we drive among Wadi Rum’s vista of sandstone cliffs dotted islandlike across the desert. Pink, orange and yellowishwhite – sand changes colour depending on the cliffs it surrounds.
We explore a narrow red gorge where Kufic inscriptions and petroglyphs of animals and people date back 2600 years. I stand on stone slab bridges, the rock beneath eroded away over centuries. White broom and white saxaul – eaten by wandering camels – is sparse.
From Wadi Rum village we cycle a final, flattish, 37km on road and sun-backed earth backdropped by Wadi Rum’s multihued pillars.
A drive to Madaba ends a journey through Jordan’s dry, parched land patchworked with a rich tapestry of history.