Jordan Honeymoon

NO MEALS ARE INCLUDED TODAY
ACCOMMODATION: HOLIDAY INN 
Your driver will be waiting at Amman (AMM) airport to take you directly to your comfortable resort / spa hotel by the Dead Sea (a 50-minute drive). There are no activities planned for today. You'll be staying here two nights.

Please keep in mind that hotel check-in time is typically after 2.00pm. Early check in is not guaranteed, but if you do arrive early luggage storage is available at the hotel.

MEALS: BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER
ACCOMMODATION: HOLIDAY INN
Today you'll have the chance to relax by the pool and float in the warm, intensely saline water of the Dead Sea. It is an unforgettable experience! The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the surface of the earth (some 400m below sea level) and contains mineral-rich muds that have been recognized since antiquity for their curative properties. This mud costs a fortune in Europe, but in Jordan you can scoop it from the seabed and cover yourself with it! The blue water, the white salt-encrusted shore, and the red desert mountains also make this an outstandingly beautiful place.

MEALS: BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER
ACCOMMODATION: AJLOUN WOODLAND RESERVE
Today you'll head north to discover one of the great Roman cities of the Middle East, Jerash. Founded at the time of Alexander the Great, Jerash flourished for around a thousand years as a trade center on the road between Damascus and Petra. The city's colonnaded streets are basically intact, as is the beautiful oval forum and the gateway built to commemorate the visit of the Emperor Hadrian. The theatre, temples, baths, and hippodrome are all well preserved, and there are some wonderful Byzantine mosaic floors from the early Christian period.

You'll continue from here to the Ajloun Woodland Reserve, where you'll spend the next two nights in one of the beautiful, secluded eco-cabins in the woods. Ajloun reserve is a protected area forested with oak, pistachio, pine, carob, and wild strawberry trees, and is a peaceful place to rest in the shade or take in the views across the Jordan Valley. On a clear day you can even see the snow-capped peaks of Jebel esh Sheikh (Mount Hermon) in Lebanon. If you're feeling more energetic there are several marked footpaths through the reserve.

On day, three, you might wish to add in the scenic Al Ayoun trail as a day activity.

OPTIONAL - WALK THE SCENIC AL AYOUN TRAIL
12KM / 4 HOURS
INCLUSIONS: HIKING GUIDE & LUNCH / PRICE PER PERSON IN USD: $80.00
Today you'll walk through one of the quietest and most beautiful parts of the Jordanian highlands, Al Ayoun - a valley of olive groves, orchards, and limestone cliffs just north of Ajloun. Beginning at the viewpoint above the village of Rasun, you'll walk through the woods and explore the ruins of early Bronze Age dolmens and a Roman wine press. In Rasun you'll have a chance to visit income-generating projects run by local women: the Calligraphy House, where you can learn to write your name in Arabic script, and the Soap House, where you can see (and buy) hand-made olive oil soap scented with flowers and herbs. A short walk brings you to the next village, Orjan, where you will enjoy lunch in the home of a local family, including taboun bread warm from the wood oven and rural Jordanian dishes rarely found in restaurants. From Orjan you'll continue your walk on a farm track, following the stream down the valley to an abandoned water mill. After a rest and a cup of tea made on a fire, you'll head back to the reserve by bus.

MEALS: BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER
ACCOMMODATION: AJLOUN WOODLAND RESERVE
Today you'll head north to discover one of the great Roman cities of the Middle East, Jerash. Founded at the time of Alexander the Great, Jerash flourished for around a thousand years as a trade center on the road between Damascus and Petra. The city's colonnaded streets are basically intact, as is the beautiful oval forum and the gateway built to commemorate the visit of the Emperor Hadrian. The theatre, temples, baths, and hippodrome are all well preserved, and there are some wonderful Byzantine mosaic floors from the early Christian period.

You'll continue from here to the Ajloun Woodland Reserve, where you'll spend the next two nights in one of the beautiful, secluded eco-cabins in the woods. Ajloun reserve is a protected area forested with oak, pistachio, pine, carob, and wild strawberry trees, and is a peaceful place to rest in the shade or take in the views across the Jordan Valley. On a clear day you can even see the snow-capped peaks of Jebel esh Sheikh (Mount Hermon) in Lebanon. If you're feeling more energetic there are several marked footpaths through the reserve.

On day, three, you might wish to add in the scenic Al Ayoun trail as a day activity.

OPTIONAL - WALK THE SCENIC AL AYOUN TRAIL
12KM / 4 HOURS
INCLUSIONS: HIKING GUIDE & LUNCH / PRICE PER PERSON IN USD: $80.00
Today you'll walk through one of the quietest and most beautiful parts of the Jordanian highlands, Al Ayoun - a valley of olive groves, orchards, and limestone cliffs just north of Ajloun. Beginning at the viewpoint above the village of Rasun, you'll walk through the woods and explore the ruins of early Bronze Age dolmens and a Roman wine press. In Rasun you'll have a chance to visit income-generating projects run by local women: the Calligraphy House, where you can learn to write your name in Arabic script, and the Soap House, where you can see (and buy) hand-made olive oil soap scented with flowers and herbs. A short walk brings you to the next village, Orjan, where you will enjoy lunch in the home of a local family, including taboun bread warm from the wood oven and rural Jordanian dishes rarely found in restaurants. From Orjan you'll continue your walk on a farm track, following the stream down the valley to an abandoned water mill. After a rest and a cup of tea made on a fire, you'll head back to the reserve by bus.

MEALS: BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER
ACCOMMODATION: FEYNAN LODGE
Morning pick-up in Ajloun and scenic drive (3 hours) to Feynan. Rated as one of the top fifty eco-lodges in the world by National Geographic magazine, Feynan's off-the-grid guesthouse is a special place to stay. The building is perfectly adapted to the climate and landscape of this desert, its water heated by solar panels and its rooms lit only by candles. Despite the remoteness of the location, this is a comfortable place to stay and makes a great base for exploring the Dana Biosphere Reserve and the ruins of ancient Feynan. The darkness of the night sky also makes this one of the best stargazing hotels on earth.

Settle in and enjoy a relaxed lunch and afternoon at the lodge. In the evening you can walk out to see the sunset over the desert. Your guides will take you on a gentle hike up to this outcrop, from where you'll be able to watch the sun go down across the Wadi Araba, lighting up the red rock mountains at your back. In the last of the light you can enjoy tea in the Bedouin camps below the rock. At this hour the men are usually bringing in their flocks from the mountain, the women are tending the evening fires, and the stars are coming out over the desert.

MEALS: BREAKFAST
ACCOMMODATION: BAIT ZAMAN
No matter how many times you've seen it reproduced on film, nothing can really prepare you for the first glimpse of Petra. The classic entry to the city takes you through the long twilight of the siq, a narrow canyon that twists for more than a mile through the red sandstone, and then stuns you into silence with the sunlit façade of the Treasury, a monument cut into the rock some 2000 years ago with a refinement that is scarcely believable.

From the postcards, you'd think this was what you'd come to see. But it's just the beginning. Petra is a vast archaeological site, most of it still unexcavated; you could spend days exploring the ruins and still not see it all. It was built by the Nabataeans, an Arab tribe who began as tent-dwelling Bedouin but soon came to dominate the most lucrative trade of the ancient world: incense. They used the money to create this city and to build an empire that extended from the Red Sea to Damascus. They also absorbed architectural ideas from Egypt, from the Babylonians, and from the Greek cities of the Mediterranean, using them to create the hybrid culture that you see in these ruins. The Temple of the Winged Lions, the High Place of Sacrifice, the Roman theatre, the Garden Tomb, the Byzantine church - any one of these monuments would be an archaeological treasure in its own right; in Petra, you can explore them one after another, and find them all set into one of the finest desert landscape in the Middle East.

MEALS: BREAKFAST
ACCOMMODATION: BAIT ZAMAN
No matter how many times you've seen it reproduced on film, nothing can really prepare you for the first glimpse of Petra. The classic entry to the city takes you through the long twilight of the siq, a narrow canyon that twists for more than a mile through the red sandstone, and then stuns you into silence with the sunlit façade of the Treasury, a monument cut into the rock some 2000 years ago with a refinement that is scarcely believable.

From the postcards, you'd think this was what you'd come to see. But it's just the beginning. Petra is a vast archaeological site, most of it still unexcavated; you could spend days exploring the ruins and still not see it all. It was built by the Nabataeans, an Arab tribe who began as tent-dwelling Bedouin but soon came to dominate the most lucrative trade of the ancient world: incense. They used the money to create this city and to build an empire that extended from the Red Sea to Damascus. They also absorbed architectural ideas from Egypt, from the Babylonians, and from the Greek cities of the Mediterranean, using them to create the hybrid culture that you see in these ruins. The Temple of the Winged Lions, the High Place of Sacrifice, the Roman theatre, the Garden Tomb, the Byzantine church - any one of these monuments would be an archaeological treasure in its own right; in Petra, you can explore them one after another, and find them all set into one of the finest desert landscape in the Middle East.

MEALS: BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER
ACCOMMODATION: RAHAYEB BEDOUIN CAMPSITE
Every guidebook to Wadi Rum repeats the description written by T.E. Lawrence of Arabia almost century ago, and with good reason. "The Arab armies would have been lost in the length and breadth of it," he wrote, "and within the walls a squadron of aeroplanes could have wheeled in formation. Our little caravan grew self-conscious, and fell dead quiet, afraid and ashamed to flaunt its smallness in the presence of such stupendous hills. Landscapes, in childhood's dream, were so vast and silent."

Bedouin guides from the Howeitat tribe (the same tribe that guided Lawrence) will meet you at Rum Village and drive you by jeep into this spectacular desert. You'll spend the morning exploring Wadi Rum's mountains and sand dunes, stopping to take in the views and to look at the inscriptions chipped into the rock over thousands of years. After a picnic lunch in the shade, followed by a cup of tea and a rest, you'll drive on to the great red dune, where you can kick off your shoes and run down the soft, warm sand. In the late afternoon you'll arrive at your camp in the heart of the protected area, where there'll be time to relax and take in the sunset before enjoying a Bedouin feast of meat and vegetables cooked in the zerb, an oven of fire-heated sand and stone. If you're still not tired out by the day's adventures you can stay up round the fire, talking and laughing with your Bedouin hosts and watching the night sky.

Your accommodation is a simple but comfortable Bedouin campsite, with a traditional goat hair tent divided into twin ‘rooms.' There are proper toilets and showers on the site (go easy on the water), as well as shaded seating areas for relaxing and dining.

Your desert accommodation will be in a fixed Bedouin camp in a beautiful desert location. It is a comfortable camp with nicely furnished tents, king size bed, en-suite bathroom, open and shaded seated area.

MEALS: BREAKFAST, LUNCH, DINNER
ACCOMMODATION: CANYON BOUTIQUE HOTEL
Enjoy a relaxed breakfast in the quiet of the desert morning. Before heading back to Amman, you might want to experience a magical hot air balloon flight over the desert. This is one of the great balloon flights anywhere in the world, taking you up some 3000 feet (approx 1000m) above the red sand dunes and rock mountains of Wadi Rum. Flights usually begin early in the morning and last for around an hour, but you should allow 2-3 hours for the whole experience. At 5.45am your guides will meet you at the visitors center and take you out to the starting point. The ground crew will pick you up at the end of your flight and bring you back to the visitors' center again. The balloon needs a minimum of 5 people to guarantee the flight. In case of bad weather the flight will be cancelled and a full refund will be given.

Inclusions: transport to and from the meeting point and the balloon flight
Price per person in USD: $185 (note this price is pending availability as it is based on the balloon minimum number (5 people) required to fly).

Alternatively, spend the late morning having a look round Amman. Jordan's capital is a real, living city, full of quirky neighborhoods, friendly people, and fabulous food. You can begin up at the citadel, where you can take in the views and explore the Roman and early Islamic ruins. Just downhill is the Roman theatre, built during the reign of Emperor Antonius but now embedded into modern Amman and still used for cultural and musical events. From here you can wander through the markets, maybe stopping in a local café to take in the street scenes, watch the old men playing backgammon, and try Arabic coffee and pastries. This is also a good chance to smoke the scented tobacco of the argeelah or hubbly bubbly.

MEALS: BREAKFAST
A single group transfer will be provided from your hotel to AMM Airport - a 40-minute drive. We wish you a safe homeward journey and hope to see you again in Jordan soon.