Wadi Ghuweir Hike

Groundwater seeping out of the canyon walls waters an abundant tropical foliage, forming the "hanging gardens."

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Well, we knew it was going to be an adventure.  We started off from Amman at 5:30 in the morning, on a bus with our guide, Yamaan Safady.  At 9am we reached the head of the canyon, in a hot desert region just north of Petra.  We entered the head of the canyon, called "wadi" in arabic, and started the long hike down.  We went through all of the geological layers of Jordan, beginning at the top with the limestone characteristic of Amman's buildings, then going deeper into the Petra sandstone, and finally ending up in the Precambrian igneous basement rocks.  The trip was a total of 11 km, taking 9 hours to complete.  Most of the hike was over cobbles and boulders, no established trail at the bottom of the wadi.  There were a few hairy drops down dry waterfalls.  At the first one, we had to get down on our stomachs, stretch out legs out to a foothold that we couldn't see, lean out and grab a much-frayed rope, and lower ourselves down.  At the second one, we were able to jump down into the pool below.  We were so exhausted at the end, and our feet hurt so bad we wanted to saw them off!  But it was so beautiful -- in the area of the sandstone, the wadi became what we geologists know as a "slot canyon" where the walls were literally a few feet apart, and went up over 300 feet.  Then we reached an area where groundwater was seeping from the canyon walls, watering an abundance of vegetation like ferns, palm trees, oleander, and moss.  It was so beautiful and cool and green, really it felt like we were on a tropical island.  We stopped there and ate lunch, sunning ourselves on some large rocks while the guide made us hot tea (Arabs can't live without their tea!)  which was really refreshing.  But we had four more hours to go.  Things kept getting more and more beautiful though.  Finally, we were rescued by Bedouins in their traditional pickup trucks, and taken on a wild ride back to the bus, which had come down to the end of the wadi.  We drove back to Amman in the dark, reaching home at 10pm.  OK, I admit that the hike stretched my physical limits, but it was the only possible way to see the canyon and I'm really glad that I could experience that.  By the way, no one thought that Eagle or Princess Jasmine could make it, but they were mostly in the lead, and completely ready for the adventure, except of course that Princess Jasmine came away hating Mother Nature even more.  But see her birthday entry to find out how she was rewarded the next day!