Trekking days: the start

Saturday, 2nd April and Sunday, 3rd April: I awoke early, apprehension gone. There was no time now for 'what-ifs' or for bailing out. T-Day was here, and I was on my way. The drive to Heathrow was smooth and I met a group of other early birds at Costa. We bonded from the start, nerves covered by laughter and excitement.

The plane journey was only five hours, but Jordan is two hours ahead of UK time, so we arrived a little after midnight. Queen Alia International Airport was quiet and small. We had a 'fixer' who moved us along, took our passports to be verified and then on to the coach. The air was warm and still.

We met Theo, our guide who works for Dream Challenges. He is Dutch but has lived in Jordan since the nineties and he was the man who would lead us, push us on, and wake us in the morning. He was the man we depended on to get us through. Although at that time, we didn't realise how much we would rely on him, how much we had to trust him.

The coach drive was smooth; the roads empty. We passed through a check-point manned by armed police. We strained to see the landscape but all we saw were lights dotted around and twinkling. Lights of all colours, some flashed purple or green, some were like shooting stars. But mostly there was darkness.

We finally got to bed at around 3am. Waking to sunshine and a view of the Dead Sea was such a treat. After a quick breakfast, we all headed down to the beach to bob around in the water. We were warned to stay on our backs as the salt level is 342 grammes/litre (the North Sea is 34-35 grammes/litre) and is nasty if it gets in your eyes. I had a small nick on my finger and it stung like crazy! Rather than feeling salty, the water felt slightly oily so I had the sensation of my skin being moisturised rather than dried out. As I headed back into the hotel I envied the people setting up deckchairs for the day. It would've been nice to stay longer, to get more sleep. But we were only to have a short walk that afternoon. Just enough to warm up our muscles and give us a taste of what was ahead. It wouldn't be too bad, and then I could sleep.

Bags packed, lunch eaten, another briefing and onto the coach. We met Mohammed, our local guide whose parents were Bedouin (he was born in a cave!) and was a mine of information. We were also accompanied by an armed policeman (in fact, I'd noted that he'd been on the coach from the airport). We were told he was there to protect us against bandits. Apparently it's the law that groups of foreign tourists must be accompanied. Bandits? Really? I hadn't thought much about it. Bandits weren't on my worry list of scorpions and snakes.

We travelled south, following the Dead Sea. Across the water lay Israel and the West Bank. I remembered when Tim had worked in Israel. How much he'd enjoyed the trip. He'd worked long days (usually fourteen hours) and had only one day off in the three weeks he was there. He'd taken a coach from Haifa to Jerusalem and visited the Wailing Wall, floated in the Dead Sea. And here I was, just across the water, on a different journey. It was a journey for Tim. But I didn't realise how much I needed it. How much I would be changed.

After an hour or so we arrived at Wadi Araba (wadi: riverbed) and disembarked, full of excitement, into the heat. This was it! We were off, at the start of our trek. We met three more guides and their donkeys (Shakira, Michael Jackson, and Indiana Jones) who would accompany us. And we set off. Along with the policeman.

We must have looked a strange group, marching out across scrabbly flat land towards the hills. We were fresh (well, as fresh as you can be after only four-hours sleep and a temperature of 30C) and started at a good pace. The group of thirty-five gradually strung out as we scrambled over rocks and picked our way through. After three hours we were hot, sweating, grimy and a little surprised at the difficulty of the afternoon. But we arrived at the camp in Feynan laughing and joking. And relieved that this was a 'proper' camp and we had showers and loos. But mostly, relieved that our tents were already waiting, food was cooking, and we had made it. We were officially on our trek. And there was no turning back.



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