Jordan & Israel
- Clare
- 17. Nov. 2019
- 4 Min. Lesezeit
Aktualisiert: 23. Nov. 2019
A beautiful trip with amazing history and scenery
We recently returned from a fabulous trip to Israel and Jordan. We had a total of 9 nights/10 days. On a previous trip we had already seen Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and these 2 places inspired us to see more.
Tel Aviv is such a great city, so we chose to revisit it on this trip too! Everyone seems to have at least one dog – mostly more – and they love dogs! So that to made it a total winner for us – we love people who love dogs :-)
The atmosphere there is vibrant, the people are very friendly and open, the long promenade along the beach is perfect to enjoy walks and to stay fit, Jaffa, the old town is amazing and the food is absolutely fantastic! The first time, we stayed in Jaffa at at the beautiful little boutique hotel Casa Nova with a beautiful terrace.
Jerusalem is a must see and experience. It is a beautiful and very inspiring place to visit with so many different religions living so closely together in the centre of the old town. We did a day trip from Tel Aviv and luckily our dear friend Avital organized a great guide. We would have missed so many interesting information without a guide.
After a great night out on the town in Tel Aviv we flew to Eilat the next day. The border crossing is on foot and a unique experience. Once we were through, we were met by our pre-arranged driver who took us to the amazing Wadi Rum. At the entrance of the park the spectacular Seven Pillars Of Wisdom are visible - named in honour of Laurence of Arabia‘s famous book.
Here we travelled through the desert to our camp “Discovery Bedu”. We highly recommend this great place – the staff are gorgeous, the tents are very spacious, well designed and decorated. This camp is located on a beautiful spot overlooking the cliffs and desert. As a luxury camp it is one of the only ones with ensuites inside your own tent.
During our stay we spent the very early morning hours taking in the sunrises – the first one by jeep-safari and then about an hour hike up a little mountain with a great view over to Saudi Arabia.
The second one was a camel ride with our lovely camel guide, his two beautiful camels and us where we trekked to a perfect sunrise spot – here our camel guide made us yummy hot sage-tea in the middle of nowhere. Later we camel-trekked to a magnificent and very luxurious desert-breakfast for Aaron’s birthday surprise – again – in the middle of this vastness of desert beauty! The vibe, atmosphere, nature and its colours are just magnificent!
On both trips we were the only tourists around and felt very privileged out there in this beautiful nature.
In the late afternoons we did some jeep safaris – these were great but they were to all the “hot-spots” and therefore overrun by large groups of tourists.… not really our cup of tea ;-) but still nice to see. The evenings we spent at the camp watching the sun set over the mountain ranges and again taking in all the different shades of red, orange, yellow, pink, purple and more!
From Wadi Rum, we had organised a driver to take us to Petra – wow – another highlight of this trip. Again, Petra is best experienced in the early hours – we were at the gate by 6 am and ahead of most other tourists. Our hike took us all through the gorge and the mind blowing sights of this place right up to the Monastery. On our return back to the areas of the Treasury, it was packed solid with tourists. We again, were very happy that we did this trip very early in the morning. The whole hike took us around 5-6 hours.
From Petra we organised a driver again who took us to Aqaba where we spent a day and a half relaxing at the Red Sea in the Al Manara Hotel. A good hotel with delicious food. We intended to do some Arabic shopping but ended up just chilling out. It is amazing to see that just around the corner from our hotel, is Eilat in Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
From Aqaba the next stop was to pick up our rental car in Eilat. Again, back to the border for the short walk-crossing and a ten minute taxi ride to the car depot. Approximately a 2 hour drive later, along good roads and not much traffic, we arrived at the Dead Sea. The experience of floating in this salty water was a funny one and we had a few laughs :-).
Early next morning we drove to the ruins of Masada – again, be there early so you are one of the first on the top of the 60m above sealevel hill (you start from around minus 400 m) – the trek up takes about 50 minutes and the sunrise and atmosphere up there is fantastic to see. Masada was the last place of resistance of the Israelis against the Romans and standing on top of the mountain you can really get an impression of what happened in 72 AC. The concept of Herod’s building of his palace is really interesting to learn about and experience – amazing how they worked out the water system up there including a swimming pool!
We went back to the hotel where you probably hear more Russian than Hebrew which is a bit odd, had another float and then headed on to our last destination of this trip – Beresheet – a beautiful hotel located in the Negev Desert on the edge of the makhtesh which is the biggest crater by erosion in the world. The scenery is simply spectacular but what makes the experience even more special are the ibexes moving along the rocks in front of your room.
On our last day we experienced one of our funniest highlights: Early morning we were surprised by a female ibex waiting in front of our apartment and asking for an apple that was lying on the table. Of course we couldn't resist :-) Apples are healthy!
After 2 nights there our trip was almost over – the drive back to Ben Gurion Airport was good and efficient and the drop off of the vehicle was smooth too.
All in all a great trip – compact and packed with great sights, lovely people and beautiful experiences!
© Text: Clare Walker, Photos: Aaron Matzinger
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