One of the pleasures of returning to civilisation is catching up with Podcast Bob's output on the Outdoors Station.But it was Andy Howell who had the pleasure of interviewing Tony Howard and Di Taylor, who have contributed regular articles about their adventures in Jordan in Adventure Travel magazine.
As the podcast explains, Tony and Di have been climbing and trekking in the mountains of North Africa and the Middle East for well over 30 years. In 1984 they discovered the climbing and trekking area of Wadi Rum, and wrote the guidebooks to that area. They return to Jordan every year and their discoveries reveal an unexpected land of forested hills, dales carpeted in flowers, huge canyons sometimes with fast-flowing rivers, caves, perfect limestone cliffs in wooded valleys and high mountains with lunar landscapes. This is the country of world famous sites of antiquity such as Petra, Pella, Ajlun and Kerak.
We had the pleasure of visiting the area for a week in November 2007. Here's a link to the blog label for that trip (finishing with this entry - you'll need to go to the bottom of the page to view the entries chronologically).
A really interesting destination. We would like to go again - our trip was really just a 'taster'.
2 comments:
They certainly got me really interested in the area. What I loved about Tony and Di was their enthusiasm for the local people. I'm very much of the Bruce Chatwin view of landscape - it's nothing without the local people's.
We were lucky in Jordan. Our guide was local to Petra, and we did meet some 'locals'.
We were happy to go on an organised trip, though - we met some 'unsupported' travellers who had a few problems, eg with hire cars. Best use the bus, and (no doubt) the Cicerone guide.
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