This route is over 700km long and has 20,000 metres of altitude difference. The route is almost never flat, passing in rapid succession from asphalt to compact gravel, stones, and even rocks where you’re forced to walk the bike, sometimes even downhill. The place is one of the most fascinating places in the world where one must go at least once in a lifetime: we are in Jordan on the Jordan Bike Trail, and the route is the north-south ridge that crosses the country to Aqaba on the Red Sea.
Those who designed it took care to choose sections that lead to small towns or villages where you can refuel and stop at hotels, never too far apart, lowering the degree of difficulty so as not to make the adventure too extreme.
The official website is very well done for its richness of detail and practical suggestions. It proposes the subdivision of the route into 12 daily stages with an average distance of about 60 kilometres and an average altitude gain of 1,600 metres. It also indicates the precise amount of climbing and assessment of the difficulty of each stage so that you can adjust the planning of your programme.
In our experience, the guides are accurate for a fairly experienced and moderately trained cyclist, not necessarily a performance cyclist. The experience is perfect for any cyclist with the ability to adapt and not in a big hurry to reach the day's destination. It is also perfect for e-bikes, but as they cannot be transported by plane, they have to be rented from local tour operators.
The experience also has a human value because you reach villages and communities that are incredibly welcoming. But it’s very important to be respectful and be aware that you are in the territory of people whose social ways are quite different from the European ones.
If you do not have at least two weeks or more to ride the Jordan Bike Trail, it’s possible to do part of it, and then you can plan to come back and do the remainder. The style in which it can be tackled can be totally self-sufficient (stove and tent), self-guided, (following the official GPS track, staying in hotels and B&Bs), or with local tour operators.
We opted for the latter and Cycling Jordan designed our trip totally to our liking, alternating between traditional hotels and family-run establishments, with dinners cooked by locals and lots of chatting with them. We did not try it, but in the small villages, you can ask where you can pitch your tent and you are almost always taken to the garden of some cottage where the owner will most likely offer to cook dinner for a very low price (10/20€).
It is not possible to recommend some stages at the expense of others: every day there is a different route to take with new mountains to climb and lush or desert landscapes to photograph. The Dead Sea will accompany us for its entire length, first seen from above, then pedalling alongside, with the knowledge that we are in the lowest place on earth at -430m.
On the route, there are lots of sights to stop off at. There are Medieval castles built by the Crusaders, some well restored can be visited, there are naturalistic areas such as Dana for the magical mix of landscapes and trekking to the Dead Sea, and there are the places sacred to Catholicism such as the Catholic cathedral on top of Mount Nebo where splendid mosaics have recently been restored. From here, Moses had a vision of the Promised Land, with Jericho and Jerusalem visible on the horizon. Further south, the Jordan Trail reaches Petra, the incredible archaeological site created by the Nabataeans in the pre-Roman era. The area is extensive, but it cannot be entered by bicycle. A visit to one of the ‘10 Wonders’ is worth a whole day for an unforgettable experience and it’s almost as demanding as the previous bike rides because of the continuous steps carved into the rock to be tackled.
Beyond Petra, the steep mountains turn into false plateaus, but above all, you begin to pedal on partially sandy tracks where you have to learn quickly how to deal with the soft ground that makes your wheels sink to the point of locking. If you are pedalling in a group, it will be a fun day, looking for the best navigation and the quickest ride to overtake your broken-down companions, surrounded by beautiful, barren, dark mountains. One of the natural highlights here is the entrance to Wadi Rum, a long sandy canyon that deserves a dedicated stop to admire the ancient rock graffiti or to walk on the enormous suspended arches forged by wind erosion. Inside, it is impossible to pedal and only the 4X4s of the tented camps are allowed. Exploring the many kilometres long area, one can see high dunes untouched by tracks, mountains overhanging the trail below, and many glimpses of the real desert on which scenes from great films such as Lawrence of Arabia, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Martian, Star Wars, Mad Max and many others were filmed.
The night in Wadi Rum is one of the unforgettable experiences that will be spent with ‘feet in the sand’ in functional tented camps, which are the only facilities allowed in the area. This is where we experienced absolute silence, starry skies as far as the eye can see, food cooked in ovens under the sand, with the spectacle of colours changing in rapid succession, both at dawn and dusk.
There is only one more stage to go before we reach Aqaba on the Red Sea, complicated by so much sand but cheered by so many free-roaming camels, often gathered in herds running noisily alongside the cyclists, and the last of the photogenic mountains that accompanied us on the final stages.
Everything you need to know about Jordan: https://it.visitjordan.com/
