People strolling nonchalantly along the beach caked completely in black & grey mud, steaming hazy air and lukewarm water that forces you to float half out of the water- sounds crazy? The Dead Sea is crazy!For a start it is the lowest point on earth at 400 metres below sea level. Then its chemical makeup means nothing, absolutely nothing, lives in it. You are not going to step on a crab or have a bit of seaweed drift by. Then the other weird thing is that there ar...

 "Oh my God my legs are broken!" said our new friend Hadda with a dramatic stooping and limping to emphasis her words. Her friends broke into fits of giggles all mimicking limping and chattering away among themselves in Arabic. We were hiking uphill out of the Siq in Petra at the end of the day when a group of school girls from Amman on an excursion to Petra asked where we were from. Hadda introduced herself in her very tentative English and then chattered away...

Our next adventure was into the desert.The more we drove, the more the surroundings began to look like Lawrence's Arabia. Just before sunset we arrived and were put in the hands of our very comical Bedouin camel driver for a camel safari. After getting us onto the camels and heading off, he commenced to yell at the top of his voice into his mobile phone! He was quite elderly and didn't have much English but we communicated well with signs and gestures an...

First stop on today's travels was Mt Nebo.From here Moses was said to have spotted the promised land. He then died and was believed to be buried on the mountain but no tomb has been identified. Naturally there were spectacular views across the Jordan Valley, Dead Sea and Jericho in Israel and we were told you can see the spires of Jerusalem but it was a bit hazy to make them out. There were also good views back in the direction of Amman. There was a Christia...

 Our flight arrived the afternoon before from Egypt and we were duly picked up by a representative of the tour company we had booked through (Bunniks). For Jordan and Syria travels we opted for an independent tour designed for just us, but with all accommodation and tours organised and booked ahead. This is not our usual way of doing things but thought for the Middle East this would be a good alternative. After being picked up it was explained to us that they ...