The King's Highway

There's not much to say about the King's Highway except 'Wow.' It goes through one of the most beautiful stretches of country I've ever seen. I understand that the portion north of Al-Karak is even more impressive since it has the Dead Sea. At any rate there is nothing along this road except for fantastic desert scenery and the occasional small town or farm. Until you get further south you don't run across any junctions or roads going East to hook up with the main highway. You just have this one little road winding through nowhere.

This stretch of road goes back for centuries. Back before cars when flat terrain was valued less than a supply of fresh water this was the main trade route through Jordan. It was certainly around at the time of the Crusades since Kerak was located where it was in order to control the trade. The Bedouin still travel this route with their sheep and caravans, although they avoid the road. We saw several groups of them as we rode through. One group even waved at us. Speaking of Bedouin I'm told by one of my taxi drivers that they're terrible with cars. Apparently they think that driving a car is like riding a camel and can never get used to the speed. Florida has its little old ladies, California has its teenagers, and Jordan has its Bedouin.

That road is the 'highway.' It doesn't really deserve that title but it certainly is an impressive thing. The road is in pretty good shape so they must maintain it regularly. I give them a lot of credit for that because there isn't any way to get supplies out there except through this small, twisty road. It's not über busy but it's not dead either. We passed cars going the other way every few minutes and every time we pulled over for a look cars would pass us.

The rest of this is just going to be a mention of things I learned about while driving. Narratively speaking we drove straight on until we reached Petra except for a brief stop for food and to check out whether I could buy a battery for my camera. I used it up taking photos of the countryside. The two guys I was riding with were a nice pair of German guys off on a vacation. I seem to recall them saying they were from Düsseldorf but I again I can't remember their names. I feel kinda bad about that because they were really nice people. They didn't have to take me along but they did and they never complained. They even refused to take any money for gas. They deserve better than to be two anonymous guys in a travel blog.

Even though southern Jordan is definitely a desert there are still plenty of plants around. Small trees tend to be the norm with bushes and shrubs around them. I only mention this for comparison with Hollywood movies which always make the desert lifeless unless there's a big palm tree to add to the shot. I don't remember seeing any palm trees in Jordan.

Those little rock piles like you see at the bottom of the photo are all over the place. I think the Bedoin put them up out of boredom. Petra is more filled with them and that place has more Bedouin than anywhere else in Jordan. Near this spot we also came across a giant radio tower. It was truly in the middle of nowhere so I don't know why they built it. Was it perhaps a military communication tower? Or was it so big because it had to be to reach both sides of the desert? I don't know. Either way it was odd.

This is a small town near Tafila. We were forced to take a detour because the main highway was out. Fortunately the detour was only a few miles of looping around and took us right back. It was poorly marked though so we might have had a bit of trouble if I hadn't had a GPS on my phone. Yay, I wasn't just a dead weight! I love the little houses here though. They look like they've been here for centuries and some of them probably have. It all looks like something out of a Christian miniseries.

Gas prices are kept constant throughout Jordan which makes traveling just as cheap no matter where you go as long as you have a rental car. I suspect that the price of gas is quite low but the signs are in Arabic so I don't know whether they're using litres per kilometer or miles per gallon. At any rate it makes it easier to fill up if you don't have to worry about getting the cheapest gas.

This little farm came near the end of the detour. There were a lot of these around but I'm not sure what they were farming. Olives perhaps? The trees are small and close to the ground and are planted in rows.

This beautiful place is the Dona Nature Preserve. It is one of the most beautiful valleys on Earth and I almost wished we had stayed to see more of it. I suspect though that it would have taken at least a day. Just getting down there doesn't look easy.

This is the town of Dona itself. It's a small little place on the other side of a big hill. I'm not exactly sure how you get to it but there must have been a road up further along. The view from there must be amazing as well, but they can't get many visitors because there are almost no houses there. Certainly I couldn't see any big enough to fit more than a family.

The only other thing that I shall mention is the military checkpoints. They have one every time you leave a governorate. Jordan is a very military-run country, although it's quite liberal for the Middle East. At these checkpoints they can stop you, search your luggage and pretty much do what they want if they think it's a question of security. Fortunately they don't bother much with tourists. We might be a nuisance but we're a harmless one. A brief look over and they were done with us. We didn't even get out of our car.

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