Biking Jordan 2021

Click here to go to my Strava profile to see or download the routes we took.

End of November I have a chat with my brother, he tells me he still wants to go on a holiday end of the year. I also have some spare holiday days left and a combined-holiday-seed is planted. The weeks after we brainstorm on how and what. We decide on an ‘active’ holiday, hiking, cycling or even kayaking crosses my mind. My brother brings up Rwanda, pretty random to me, but hey I’m up for anything exciting. Tickets are too expensive nevertheless. Then my brother comes up with Jordan, which to me is very familiar because before I left on my one month solo cycling adventure in Morocco it was also a last-minute choice between Jordan and Morocco.

Jordan it is.

The next weeks we find a pretty awesome bike trail that we want to follow (jordanbiketrail.com), air tickets and a shop in Amman that rents out mountain bikes. We choose not to bring our own bikes because the flights have stopovers and baggage is not automatically carried from one plane to the other.

Dead sea (-350m), climbing back to (normal) sea-level.

Amman (1)

Departure is on Boxing day and COVID makes it all a little more stressful. PCR test at home before departure: 2x negative, the first relief. The PCR test when we arrive in Amman should take away most of the stress. Because if the test is positive then we are obliged to go to a quarantine hotel which means are holiday is over and actually never started. We even have the conversation upfront what we will do if one of us test positive in Amman. Jeroen decides that if he is negative and I am positive that he will not do the trip alone and will fly back to NL. I decide that if it’s the other way around I will do the bike trip alone.

When we arrive in Amman we are straight led into the testing street. Twelve hours later we get our results: negative again. Holiday is on!!

Next day we pick up our bikes with Hussam from Bike Rush in Amman, customize them and put on all our bike bags. Grand Départ.

Amman – Madaba – Dead Sea

The first days are pretty smooth. We are spoiled with sunshine and 20 degrees in the afternoon. Lunch seems to be a little bit tricky. The first day we have to cross a big highway and next to that highway we find a falafel-place. Little did we know, that this will be our first and last proper lunch meal that we are going to have for the coming two weeks.

Dead Sea – Dhiban

“After a day of conquering 2000 elevation meters we were set on sleeping in a city called Dhiban. During the day, scrolling through Google Maps, we already found out that Google didn’t seem to have any hotels on offer. We decided to drive to Dhiban and find out anyway. It would be our only time that we would arrive somewhere without having an actual address. When reaching Dhiban, of course the usual eyes where upon us, people greeting us from their cars and shops. My plan was to first get a cup of tea from the coffeeshop I spotted in what seemed to be the busiest street of town. “Cay, kahve, sokram” …”Hotel?” … pointing to the ground. A very clear answer came from the nice and smiling gentleman from behind the desk.. “No”. No panick, let’s first drink our beverages and think about our game plan. Sitting on the curb in front of the coffeeshop we were discussing, looked like we had to drive another another 25km and climb 750 meters and we were already pretty tired. In the meantime more people gathered around us, getting tea from the coffeeshop. Three guys our age started making conversation with us. The usual, where we from etcetera. One of the guys seemed to speak a bit more English than the regular Jordanese and I tried asking for a hotel again. He confirmed what we already knew but then offered us to sleep at his family house. And then within 5 minutes a sleeping place was arranged but more importantly the start of our nicest evening in Jordan began.”

Dhiban – El-Kerak – At-Tafilah

“On the last day of the year on a certain point we cycle on a plateau across agricultural fields. No mountains to conquer, no villages or people that scream for attention. We drive side by side. Suddenly we remind ourselves that it is the last day of the year, we almost forgot it. We talk about the past year and what we want to achieve next year. Also, we raise the question if the Jordanians would have some kind of New Year’s Eve celebrations? The answer comes from a coffeeshop owner were we buy two snickers, one coffee and a tea after we finished our last ascent of the day. In simple English and with gestures I ask him if there will be any party tonight. His answer is very clear: “No. You better go to sleep.” We follow his advice and are asleep at 22h.”