Typed up at: Salome Hotel in Madaba, Sydney Hotel in Amman, Legend Hotel
in Delhi Posted from: Legend Hotel in Delhi
From Wadi
Musa we took a cheap taxi to the Dana Tower Hotel. Walid was our driver
and we’d be using his services again. The ride was nice and not very
long. I wasn’t quite prepared for how small and how deserted Dana
village is. There are quite a few buildings there, but almost all of
them are abandoned and falling apart. The village is set on a cliff
overlooking Wadi Dana, which is a nice looking canyon. It was also very
cold, with a handful of ice patches visible in the morning.
Unfortunately our hotel did not have heating, and we didn’t trust the
hot water enough to risk standing in an ice cold shower. Other than that
it was great, though. The staff were very friendly and on top of things.
The building seemed like the kind of thing you get when you add a new
room every year, and the food was really excellent. The communal tent,
with a minimal space heater, was also a great place to meet everybody
else who was staying here. There were no restaurants in town so
everybody ate all there meals here.
The first
afternoon we went on a short walk. We just walked past the fruit garden,
admiring small concrete gullies that had water flowing. We were also
very impressed with the trees we saw, just because we haven’t really
seen any in a long time. The most exciting part of that walk was that
the path was blocked by 3 donkeys, which are cute and really tame, but
we weren’t quite sure how dependable they really were. The only way
around them was walking right behind them, which we did. It turned out
not to be a problem.
After a
wonderful dinner we went to bed, snuggling between several layers of
blankets in order to stay warm. We did, but not all guests felt as
fortunate. After breakfast we set off on a hike down the Wadi with Roger
from Spain, and Dieter from Switzerland. In the morning it was quite
cold and very windy, but as we descended into the canyon the wind let up
and the sun warmed things up a bit. It was a nice walk, through some
varied terrain. The river was dry all the way down, but we encountered
plenty of nice trees as well as more deserty plant life. Interestingly,
northern canyon wall was very steep and rocky, while the southern wall
was composed more of soil and plants.
At the
bottom of the canyon was a sizable Bedouin camp. 3 girls invited us for
tea but we passed because we didn’t feel like we had the time. They
spoke mostly to Danielle, and it was interesting that even here the
first question after discovering that we were married was “do you have a
baby?” Further down we had a bit of excitement when we were told to pay
a day use fee by somebody with no ID or much of anything. Eventually we
were convinced that it was legit, and we paid our JD 7 each, which makes
this some of the most expensive hiking I’ve done. We rode over a dirt
road to a small town in the back of a pickup truck, and then Walid drove
us the 120km back to our hotel.
Dana was
nice, but nowhere near as nice as Petra. If we’d had more time perhaps
we would have attempted some of the guided walks in the area, especially
the 3 day trek from Dana to Petra.
