Trekking and climbing in the gorges of the Jordan River Valley

Hikers in Wadi Assal near the Dead Sea, Jordan. Photo: Gioia Forster/dpa

Kerak, Jordan (dpa) - With their rucksacks filled with water, hummus and falafel to eat along the way, a group of young hikers sets off.

The path is rocky, for the Jordanian desert is dry. And yet the small babbling brook next to the trekkers' trail holds some promise.

All at once, a tropical oasis unfolds before the group, with water plunging down a waterfall from overhead, green palm trees rising up against stone walls and pink blossoms adorning the valley.

It is the Wadi Assal - the valley of honey - and is located on one of the many new hiking trails that Jordan has to offer.

"Jordan is a land of contrasts," says Hakim Tamimi-Muriño, of the travel firm Tropical Desert Trips. "In one of our valleys you sometimes have to fight your way through the thick foliage like Rambo, while only 10 metres away you have desert."

For the past eight years Tamimi-Muriño's company has specialized in hiking and climbing tours in the green valleys and gorges of the desert country. Such tours are gaining in popularity.

Half-Spanish, half-Jordanian, Tamimi-Muriño himself was drawn to the wild regions as a 16-year-old. With typical youthful cockiness, he would go sliding down waterfalls and exploring the valleys, chiefly those alongside the Dead Sea. His local friends could not understand his wanderlust, asking why he chose to walk when he could ride in a car.

"In Jordan there were no recreational sports out in nature," says the now 29-year-old. "The last thing that people here think about is their recreation time, for they have other worries."

In fact, the desert country is an ideal place for outdoor adventure sports.

It is thanks to the fact that two of the Earth's tectonic plates rub up against each other in the Jordan River valley that huge crevices have been created in the rock - later on to become streams and rivers that would make the valleys a lush green.

Here, one can go on leisurely hikes, or if one is more athletic and adventurous, climb the steep walls. There are 67 river gorges in the Jordan Valley, Tamimi-Muriño says. "But many have not yet been mapped or offered for hiking."

A spokeswoman for the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN), the authority in charge of Jordan's national parks, says it has only been during the last five years that people have become enthusiastic about hiking and climbing.

There are four hiking trails in the parks, with two gorges in particular being a favourite destination for trekkers.

One is the Wadi Mujib, where the adventurous like to go climbing up the smaller waterfalls. The other is Wadi bin Hamad that offers more leisurely hikes on trails surrounded by palm trees and flowers.

When Tamimi-Muriño began to organize tours eight years ago, things started out more on the adventurous side. He explored wadis based on sketches and maps made by Italian geologist Itai Haviv, who researched many gorges in the 1990s. Nor did Tamimi-Muriño have money for any equipment.

"Swimming vests were too expensive, so we stuffed our backpacks with empty plastic bottles. That way we were able to float along in the water," he recalls.

Today he has a team of around 16 freelance guides offering tours along 46 different routes. With the tours, Tamimi-Muriño also helps to support local families who prepare traditional Arab dishes for participants in the longer treks.

Most of Tamimi-Muriño's clients are foreigners who live in Jordan. Many want to get out in nature and explore the countryside on weekends. Having already taken in the antique city of Petra, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site, and the Roman site of Jerash, they now see the hiking trails as offering something different.

No wadi is the same as the other, and trekkers can also combine both their love of nature with interest in cultural topics.

For example, there is the 430-kilometre-long Abraham trail following in the footsteps of the Old Testament prophet through the entire Mideast region. In the Jordanian section of the trail, hikers go past Byzantine churches and the crusader castle of Kerak, finishing in the red desert of Wadi Rum, through which Lawrence of Arabia once passed.

"My dream is to one day see Jordanians on my hikes," Tamimi-Muriño says. He hopes that outdoor recreation fever will spread in his own country as it already has in Europe and the United States.

But for this to become reality, a number of things must happen first. For one thing, there is no genuine association for trail guides, or for training them and guaranteeing certain basic safety standards.

Tamimi-Muriño wants trekking to develop into a sport in Jordan, and so he organizes meetings in various ministries, has founded a climbing school, and even gives instructions in YouTube videos how to drive metal stakes into a wall of rock.

He is a true believer in the future of hiking in Jordan.

"Expanding our physical limits is something that we humans need," Tamimi-Muriño declares.

dpa international

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