The Trail
The Trail was most challenging but fulfilling experience we have ever willingly put ourselves through. It was the hardest and best travel experience either of us has ever done.
We hiked over 650km, up and down, up and down the million valleys of Jordan. We climbed up mountains (often on hands and knees), down into deep river valleys below sea level, across streams, through the back door of Petra, over sand dunes, through 52 villages, into the desert of Wadi Rum and finally ended the whole trail by wading fully-clothed into the Red Sea.
For most of the trail, we didn’t see any other tourists or hikers. On some days, we didn’t see anyone at all.
We camped in our tiny tent for about half the time – wherever we could find a spot that didn’t seem to be part of a shepherd’s trail – and we bathed in rivers. For the other half, we stayed in strangers’ homes (where a shower was a bucket of water), slept on the floor of Bedouin camps, and sometimes, when available, treated ourselves to guesthouses or hotels.
We drank water that we purified in streams, ate chocolate bars for breakfast and made depressing tuna and cheese wraps huddled in our tent in the dark. Other days we were treated by strangers to magnificent feasts of rice and lamb and veggies and hummus and falafel and tabbouleh. And of course, chai.
Every morning we woke up and said to each other, “I don’t want to walk today” and yet every day we pulled on our boots over our sore feet, pulled on our packs over our weary bodies, and walked between 12-28km. Every day for 30 days, with 5 days of rest and planning scattered throughout.
Every night when we took off our shoes we performed our evening ritual of poking holes in our blisters with a needle. And fell asleep by 7pm.
We walked in up to 35 degrees during the day and slept in our puffer jackets when it got down to 0 degrees at night.
We walked in hail, rain, and the strongest wind I’ve ever felt – we had to hold on to each other to keep from being blown off the cliff.
On our rest days we didn’t get much rest. We had to spend the whole day sorting out how we were going to survive the next section – where is the next water source, where can we resupply with food, where will we sleep.
Trail Reflections
The trail has made our lives feel so much longer. We have changed. We learned how to deal with our emotions, how to try to be compassionate and remain calm in even the most trying circumstances. And we learned how to tolerate intense physical pain and just keep walking, no matter what. It was a constant challenge of endurance. Every day we wondered if we were going to keep going. But we didn’t have a choice. And while the lows were so low, the highs were so high. We’ve never felt such euphoria – absolute bliss and joy. So many rejuvenating moments – we call them ‘rejuvenators’ – whether the feeling of a cool breeze on our bare feet, a seat in the shade, the first swig of orange soda from a local minimarket, or a kind gesture from a stranger. The emotional roller coaster was intoxicating. We worry less about little things because even when everything goes wrong, it all works out. We learned how to be present and grateful – looking down at our feet and focusing on nothing beyond the next step, but also remembering to look up at the beauty that surrounded us.
Almost every day on the trail, someone would offer some gesture of kindness or generosity. It was so humbling, these people offering everything they have to complete strangers – their chai, food, water, carpets to sit on, napkins, soap, phone numbers in case we need any help, fruit from their farm, rides, homes to sleep and wash in. Most of them did not have much to share, and yet they shared it with us and wanted nothing in return. If they had something – anything – to give, they would give it to us. We were often brought to tears. Everybody in Jordan always says “you are welcome”, not as a response to thank you, but to genuinely say that we are welcome here in this country and we are welcome among them as friends.
Kids would run up to us to give us pomegranates and other snacks, and then run away giggling.
One family that we met at our first campsite shared their dinner with us, gave us advice, offered for us to stay at their home, and called us every couple of days afterwards to make sure we were ok and see how we were going. We called them on our last day to let them know we finished the trail. We still keep in touch.
Getting to know Jordan
Most Jordanians didn’t understand why we would want to hike the length of Jordan. Everybody always asked us, “Why?” They thought we were insane. Hiking is a foreign concept to them, much less hiking for 30 days. But one man we met, a police officer from a town called Faqua, understood. When we told him what we were doing, he responded with “Beautiful”. He understood the achievement we would feel upon finishing, the adventures that would make us stronger, and the people that would show us kindness. He understood that we would know his country intimately – we would see the bustle of Amman and the emptiness of the desert, walk amongst thousand-year-old olive trees, and climb on our hands and feet up the side of Mt Nebo. He understood that we’d have the time to watch our bruises heal, while developing new ones.
How did we find ourselves here?
We were travelling for 6 months with a vague plan to head from Eastern Europe towards China. At this point we had no idea the Trail even existed.
Our travels started in Russia, and then the Baltic countries, and the Balkans, via bus, train, car, and plane. Everything was very unplanned. Because we didn’t have a plan, almost every day was an exercise in asking ourselves what we want to do, how we want to spend our time, what matters to us. After a few months of sightseeing, despite loving the travel, we found that we were lacking some meaning. We found that the best experiences were the hardest ones – those memories stayed with us the longest because they taught us something, and we wanted more of those challenges.
In August we were in Greece, thinking about where to go next. We were in bed with our laptops in our little lofted hotel room in Monemvasia, doing travel research, when Patrick came across a YouTube clip that had us both mesmerised. The Jordan Trail. It took one YouTube video to transform the entire nature of our trip. It was everything we wanted: challenge, meaning, fulfilment, achievement, cultural immersion, authenticity, and to be completely out of our comfort zone. We decided right in that moment, with an almost maniacal glee, that we were definitely hiking this trail. We were going to spend over a month of our trip walking the entire length of Jordan. No matter what. [Here’s the video that changed everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45CqaKj7KZY]
Some daily blogs from the pen of Anna
Day 15: We were terrified of the Three Wadis – we had heard horror stories, and they were described by the Jordan TrailAssociation as “Difficult Plus”. The only Difficult Plus section on the entire trail, with an infamous life-threatening descent followed by a massive, never-ending climb. We survived the descent but barely made it to the top. During the climb, I avoided looking up ahead or back behind me. I just stared at my feet and kept on trudging up. At one point I looked up and saw the steep mountain ahead of me and panicked. There was just no way I could do this. But with my peripheral vision blocked by my hat, I kept on. I watched my feet climb over big black rocks, while the earth-shattering wind prevented me from hearing my thoughts or my boots crunching pebbles on the ground. We saw a flock of sheep up at the very top and knew that’s where we were headed. I was scared. The wind was so loud and strong I almost lost my footing many times, and if not for the boulders I grabbed onto, I would’ve slipped. Once we got to the top, instead of feeling rewarded and relieved, we were still harassed by the powerful wind as well as some very large sheep dogs which followed us. The flock of sheep seemed to be following us as well. The terrain turned sandy and it was difficult to walk. The wind was blowing the sand into my face. We dragged ourselves to the nearest village to get some much needed fuel – it was the first village we had seen in days. This young guy pulled up in his car and asked where we were going and we said market? He said get in. He took us to the shop and got behind the counter because, against all odds, he owns the village market. We spent the rest of the day sitting on the stoop of this shop, feeling like the cool kids on the block, resting our legs and getting snacks and beverages handed to us at regular intervals, by our new friend Ammar and by all the local shopgoers. But the real treat was when Ammar and his friend Anas took us for a drive to their favourite spots, including Ammar’s father’s grave, the family olive grove, and this view overlooking so much of the ground we had covered in the past two weeks. They told us about their Islam. Somehow, in their limited English and our very limited Arabic, we exchanged minds and hearts and found out that we are all the same.
Day 19: After camping in severe thunderstorms and walking another 23km day in relentless ferocious winds, we had had enough. I stopped walking and sat down on my bag, utterly defeated. I could not take another step. A man and his young daughter saw us on the side of the road, came out of their house and insisted that we come sit by their fire. They shared their family meal with us – a huge platter of rice and lamb stew that we all ate sitting on the floor – and they gave us fruits for our lunch the next day. They didn’t mind that we were covered in dirt, smelled like we hadn’t showered in days (we hadn’t), and didn’t speak their language. They treated us like royalty and cherished us. And we will always cherish them.
Day 29: For four days of the trail, there is no access to food or water for 100km, so we had to hire a guy called Habu to plant food and water for us at each of our campsites. We bought and packed all of our provisions, he went out in his truck to plant them for us, and he came back and gave us the GPS coordinates of each cache. We found the first cache, no problem. The second cache seemed to have been enjoyed by a small animal, but most of it was still edible. The third cache – well, we didn’t find it. With no cache we had no dinner that night. The next day we hiked 21km without any food and only 1.5L of water left over from the day before. There was no cell service, no shepherds, no homes, no nothing. Just desert wilderness. By the time we reached a tiny village at the top of a big climb, we were so hungry and tired we collapsed. We were broken for the thousandth time on this journey. Someone in the distance must have seen our desperation because he ran towards us and offered to help. We were driven to the tents of Abu Sabah, the chief Bedouin of the village. Abu Sabah fed us dinner and let us sleep in his tent and told us jokes and nursed us back to life.
Day 32: Our rest day in Wadi Rum turned into a stress day – the worst of the entire trail. We did not know there was no ATM in Rum Village, we did not know our desert camp did not accept credit card despite advertising such a service online, and we had limited cash. We told our predicament to the camp owner who told us to give him all our money and leave. So we did – save $10 that we would need to keep to survive. He had deceived us and other guests in many ways and we wanted as far away from the camp as possible – a horrible feeling to have towards another human. We used the $10 to buy food and water to last us for the final three days of hiking (where food and water isn’t available). We went around doing price comparisons at every supermarket – every cent matters when you only have $10 to your name – and ended up with 9L of water, 10 cans of tuna, and 5 cans of corn, to last us until the end of the trail. We sat around in the village for hours, not knowing where we would sleep that night (wild camping not allowed in Wadi Rum; we couldn’t stay anywhere else with no cash; and we were in no mental or physical state to walk). After a few hours of panicking, a Bedouin man named Salameh – whom we had brushed off the day before because we thought he was trying to sell us stuff – came up to us and said we could stay at his camp for free, no problem. The ride to his camp was very long. Who can we trust? I cried in the backseat at this thought – not trusting anyone. But he kept his word. He gave us a nice tent to sleep in for the night, the best dinner we had in all of Jordan, and breakfast the next morning, all at no charge. He’s 27, he sleeps in the bed of his truck because he feels more comfortable in the open air, and he saved us.