3 Day Jeep Tour:

Itinerary # 4

Aqaba – Wadi Rum - Petra – Siq Al Barid (Little Petra) – Al Beidha – Wadi Namala – Wadi Al Hasa - Aqaba

Day 1

Aqaba – Wadi Rum

You will be met at Aqaba port and taken for a typical Jordanian breakfast, a great way to start this short trip to Jordan!

We will drive north to Wadi Rum and enjoy a Jeep Safari on the pink and white desert sands surrounded by towering wind-sculpted sandstone outcrops, with sheer red sides and rounded summits.

The vast desert expanse of Wadi Rum has become famed as the location for many of Lawrence of Arabia's exploits, but traders have across this landscape for thousands of years.

Canyons, offering respite from the powerful midday sun, bear Thamudic inscriptions dating back two millennia.

We will stay the night at a luxury campsite in Wadi Rum eating a traditional Bedouin dinner prepared by our local hosts.

Day 2

Petra

After a buffet-style breakfast we break camp and drive to Petra to visit the 'rose-red city half as old as time' which is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

Petra is a city which was carved out of the Sharah Mountains by the Nabataeans an industrious Arab people who settled here more than 2,000 years ago, turning it into an important junction for the silk, spice, and other trade routes that linked China, India, and southern Arabia with Syria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

Petra fell into obscurity for a thousand years, its location and very existence kept a closely guarded secret by the local Bedouin, before being re-discovered by the Swiss explorer Burkhardt in 1812.

We will enter the city through the Siq, a narrow gorge over a kilometer in length, flanked on either side by soaring, 80 meter high cliffs to be confronted by Al Khazneh (Treasury), Petra's most elaborate monument.

Local legend has it that the rock-cut Treasury once held the gifts of Queen Sheba to Solomon. As you enter the Petra valley you will be overwhelmed by the natural beauty of the place and its outstanding architectural achievements.

There are hundreds of elaborate rock-cut tombs with intricate carvings as well as obelisks, temples, sacrificial altars and colonnaded streets, and high above, overlooking the valley, is the impressive ( Al Deir ) Monastery, reached up a flight of 800 stone stairs.

We will return to our hotel in Petra for dinner and overnight.

Day 3

Petra – Siq Al Barid (Little Petra) – Al Beidha – Wadi Namala – Wadi Al Hasa - Aqaba

On the final day of our short-trip we visit Siq Al Barid (Little Petra) and Al Beidha, a suburb of the lost ancient city of Petra, which come complete with its own mini-Siq containing tombs, temples, and various examples of domestic architecture including water channels and some faint frescoes.

Even in bright sunlight, their rock carved residences and tombs recede into shadows. Living, healthy plants with profuse pink blossoms grow in stark contrast to the dark mountain backdrop: all in all an intriguing place to look upon.

Leaving Little Petra we will go through Wadi Namala, on a mixture of on-road and off-road tracks to drive to Wadi Hasa, near the Dead Sea .

This is a great route which offers absolutely stunning scenery on all sides.

We drive back to Aqaba for departure via Jordan's south border. It has been quite an adventure!