We arrived on the Royal Jordanian Airlines to the Amman Airport, and we were immediately met by the Intrepid representative who collected our passports, which expedited our immigration into Jordan. He was also taking care of another Intrepid group that was the “Comfort" group. I didn't see much difference in how we were treated between our "Basic" group and the "Comfort" group.
Preview of our Berenice Beach Club on the Red Sea, Aqaba, Jordan.
After returning our stamped passports, the Intrepid rep. directed us to a shuttle bus which took us to the Signature Hotel in downtown Amman. During the Egypt tour, Dan was my roommate and now Matt would be my roommate in Jordan.
After settling into our rooms we meet our Intrepid tour guide, Thaer Musa, as well as four new members of our tour group. All were women and two were from Germany—Sandra and Daniela, Lien was from Belgium, and Morgan was from the US. Their backgrounds included insurance, specialized clothing marketing, teaching, and homeless shelter manager.
Musa addressed the issue of the war between Israel and Hamas by saying that Jordan was a very safe country, the king was one of the negotiators, along with the president of Egypt to try to achieve some level of peace and return of hostages to Israel. He indicated that Intrepid had canceled all of their tours to Israel, which affected one of our Canadian tour group members. He indicated that in case anything changed they would be within four hours of an airport to take us to safety.
Although we haven’t seen much of Jordan, it is so much cleaner, and not as dusty as our experience was traveling through Egypt, and also it looks much more prosperous based on the buildings we saw, the cars on the road, and the conditions of the roads.
After introductions, we headed down the street and stopped at a pastry shop to try out some treats before heading to dinner.
Along the way, our guide redirected us away from a large demonstration of Palestinians, protesting the war between Israel and Hamas. We did see a few stragglers with Palestinian flags, running up and down by the cars in the street on our way to the pastry shop.
We then went around the corner up some steep stairs, and then down some stairs to reach the Jabal Restaurant where we had some great food on the rooftop. We had some great views of the city below.
I had an eggplant, pasta, and beef main dish laced with pomegranates, and it was delicious before we returned to the Signature Hotel for the evening.
After the hotel buffet breakfast, we headed out to Aqaba on the Red Sea for a day of relaxing, snorkeling, and sunning at the Berenice Beach Club.
When we passed the King's residence, we saw an armed personnel vehicle, and several armed guards surrounding the complex. Musa indicated that this was not normal, but rather in response to the King‘s participation in negotiations with Israel and Hamas and the demonstrations in Amman.
With a population of 11.1 million residents, Jordan has become the largest refugee-holding country in the world. About 1.5 million citizens were refugees from Palestine and there are now about 634,000 refugee immigrants from Palestine. They also have about 1.4 million Syrian refugees, and 1.6 million from other countries such as Yemen, Libia, Lebanon, and Iraq.
With the tensions in the Middle East, Musa indicated that a tour group from Poland he was going to guide following our trip had just been canceled. but he was able to pick up another tour group the day following our departure.
I just checked the Intrepid Tour website and it looks like they have discounted the Egypt tours by $400 to $1,100 USD and the Jordan tours by $400 to $600 USD. My Egypt-Jordan trip has been discounted by $1,100 from $3,800 most likely to attract some more adventurous Intrepid Tour clients.
He indicated that both Jordan and Egypt were just recovering from the Covid 19 pandemic and now are faced with losing tourist business because of the war between Israel and Hamas.
It was a four-hour drive south to Aqaba from Amman. The road was good and the scenery was mostly hilly desert arid land.
Before we hit the beach, we visited downtown Aqaba and the Mamluk Castle of Aqaba which was a destination for caravans on their way to Mecca and Medina during the Ottoman era.
When we got to the Berenice Beach Club in Aqaba, I enjoyed my kofte lunch with grilled vegetables, along with my usual mango shake under the umbrella tables that fronted the Red Sea before I went snorkeling. I don't think anyone in our group joined the Zumba group.
I enjoyed snorkeling in the crystal clear waters of the Red Sea, where I saw several types of coral and a few fish that I hadn’t seen before while snorkeling in other places.
We then drove about an hour and a half to Wadi Rum just as the sun was setting. We transferred to 4-wheel vehicles with deflated tires to cross the desert to our Wadi Rum Mohammed Mutlak Desert Camp. We spent two nights in the desert camp where we hiked and explored this unique desert which has been the backdrop to several movies including Lawrence of Arabia and more recently John Wick Chapter 4.
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Thanks for the tour, great time
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