Hi Folks,
Has anybody here done any touring in Jordan?
I'm hoping to spend two to three weeks solo touring round Jordan next year and I'm looking for advice on some good roads to take between places to stay. Remote roads and tracks are fine and the chance for a cheeky overnight bivvy under the stars even better.
To give you an idea of the kind of roads I'm looking at I'll be riding a Surly Long Haul Trucker with 26" (Rigida Sputnik) wheels. It currently has drop bars and Schwalbe Marathon 1.5" on it. But I might swap these for flat bars and knobblies (fatties fit fine!) if there is enough potential for riding on unsealed roads. Nothing too rough, though - I'll be loaded up and the Trucker has no suspension!
Thanks for any tips you can supply or perhaps books/web resources you can point me to.
Also, what are the best paper map/maps of the country and what is a good time of year to go?
Matt
Cycle touring in Jordan
Re: Cycle touring in Jordan
November to March is best. Getting hot by April. I went over Christmas and New Year and it was 20C every day, though cold at night. But people coming the other way from Amman told me they'd had cool and wet up there, which we missed, it had dried and warmed up by the time we got there. At Petra they showed us a photo of the village lying under about a metre of snow which can fall from time to time - that photo was taken in Feb a few years before we went there. So, there is weather, you can only try your best.
Unless you are going to ride out east, then in the main inhabited western part of the country there aren't many roads. South of Amman there's basically just 3. You will ride the middle one, the King's Highway, from Aqaba to Amman because it is nice, has accommodation at suitable intervals, and because it allows you to visit Petra, Krak and Madaba. Half way from Petra to Aqaba, south of the King's Highway/desert highway fork, you can visit Wadi Rum, which is also exceedingly nice. All of this has accommodation at approx. 100km intervals. You have to stay in Tafilah half way between Petra and Krak, which as far as we could see had one small unpleasant hotel, and all the places to eat were shut, so we ended up cooking on our campstove in the room - the owner walked in on us and looked unsurprised. You can turn off the road to visit Dana Reserve, which is a national park with find scenery, but needs prior arrangements. There may be one or two other detours for variety, but most people seem to do just that.
The eastern desert highway takes you to Ma'an, which you probably don't want to go to, as it is a hotbed of militants, and then it doesn't go through enough other places, unless you can do long rides, and the scenery is tedious on it. The Dead Sea/Wadi Araba road running along the west also has a shortage of places to stay south of the Dead Sea resort. Camping is in general not allowed and wild camping probably a bad idea, though see if you can find a travelogue for anyone cycling the Dead Sea road, see what they did, I suspect they probably had to. Camping is tolerated at Wadi Rum if you drag your bike through the deep sand far enough beyond the village, we did that, 2 nights, was wonderful. But also plenty of accom in the village, popular tourist place. The deep sand to get to the camp spot is indicative of the general problem of remote tracks in the country - there are back-country tracks from there to Aqaba, but you'd need a sand-dune bike to ride them. I think you can also camp at Dana, but I think you still need to fix it in advance to go there at all, and I think water can be problem there.
Can't tell you very much about the north. We got the bus to Irbid, which clearly wasn't used to accommodating foreign tourists despite being the main town in the north, and then next day headed downhill to use the northern crossing back to Israel. But there is a higher density of roads in that NW corner, so some exploring possibilities, though probably all a bit close to Syria for comfort these days. And also some busy roads.
For all that, cycling the Kings Highway from Aqaba to Amman was an excellent bike ride, and mostly not much traffic. Even if you take transport to get back to the other end of the country, it's worth a week of anyone's time. You need to allow 2 nights at Petra and 2 nights at Wadi Rum for visiting the sights, so you probably need just over a week in practice.
Unless you are going to ride out east, then in the main inhabited western part of the country there aren't many roads. South of Amman there's basically just 3. You will ride the middle one, the King's Highway, from Aqaba to Amman because it is nice, has accommodation at suitable intervals, and because it allows you to visit Petra, Krak and Madaba. Half way from Petra to Aqaba, south of the King's Highway/desert highway fork, you can visit Wadi Rum, which is also exceedingly nice. All of this has accommodation at approx. 100km intervals. You have to stay in Tafilah half way between Petra and Krak, which as far as we could see had one small unpleasant hotel, and all the places to eat were shut, so we ended up cooking on our campstove in the room - the owner walked in on us and looked unsurprised. You can turn off the road to visit Dana Reserve, which is a national park with find scenery, but needs prior arrangements. There may be one or two other detours for variety, but most people seem to do just that.
The eastern desert highway takes you to Ma'an, which you probably don't want to go to, as it is a hotbed of militants, and then it doesn't go through enough other places, unless you can do long rides, and the scenery is tedious on it. The Dead Sea/Wadi Araba road running along the west also has a shortage of places to stay south of the Dead Sea resort. Camping is in general not allowed and wild camping probably a bad idea, though see if you can find a travelogue for anyone cycling the Dead Sea road, see what they did, I suspect they probably had to. Camping is tolerated at Wadi Rum if you drag your bike through the deep sand far enough beyond the village, we did that, 2 nights, was wonderful. But also plenty of accom in the village, popular tourist place. The deep sand to get to the camp spot is indicative of the general problem of remote tracks in the country - there are back-country tracks from there to Aqaba, but you'd need a sand-dune bike to ride them. I think you can also camp at Dana, but I think you still need to fix it in advance to go there at all, and I think water can be problem there.
Can't tell you very much about the north. We got the bus to Irbid, which clearly wasn't used to accommodating foreign tourists despite being the main town in the north, and then next day headed downhill to use the northern crossing back to Israel. But there is a higher density of roads in that NW corner, so some exploring possibilities, though probably all a bit close to Syria for comfort these days. And also some busy roads.
For all that, cycling the Kings Highway from Aqaba to Amman was an excellent bike ride, and mostly not much traffic. Even if you take transport to get back to the other end of the country, it's worth a week of anyone's time. You need to allow 2 nights at Petra and 2 nights at Wadi Rum for visiting the sights, so you probably need just over a week in practice.
Re: Cycle touring in Jordan
Update - it seems there is now a variety of accommodation in Dana village near the Dana reserve.
Re: Cycle touring in Jordan
The Lonely Planet Thorn Tree will have a forum which covers Jordan. I don't know how good it is, but you could try asking questions there.
Re: Cycle touring in Jordan
Thanks Iviehoff, that's great info and well worth knowing. Shame about the lack of good backcountry roads, I was rather hoping for some backroads over the mountains but I don't fancy sand riding on a loaded touring bike!
Do you think it would be easy enough to arrange loading the bike on a bus back north (if I was to ride South from Amman to Aqaba)?
Thanks Simon, I hadn't thought of the Thorn Tree forum, but that's probably a good a place as any to get non-bike specific info on accommodation etc.
Matt
Do you think it would be easy enough to arrange loading the bike on a bus back north (if I was to ride South from Amman to Aqaba)?
Thanks Simon, I hadn't thought of the Thorn Tree forum, but that's probably a good a place as any to get non-bike specific info on accommodation etc.
Matt
Re: Cycle touring in Jordan
Matt25 wrote:Do you think it would be easy enough to arrange loading the bike on a bus back north (if I was to ride South from Amman to Aqaba)?
We had no difficulty using a bus from Amman to Irbid, so I would imagine so. It is the kind of country where if you have some money available, people are pleased to try and fix things for you. Very friendly country. It is also the kind of country where long distance taxis are pretty reasonable.