Today we begin our Lawrence of Arabia desert style honeymoon adventure. We will be spending the second half of our 20 days in Jordan on a group horse riding trip. This trip represents our first foray into “adventure travel” and away from the traditional rest and relaxation beach honeymoon so it promises to be both challenging and fun. Our excitement however, is definitely balanced with some slight trepidation.
We are optimists and we plan to throw ourselves into this experience with enthusiasm and a smile. As the Irish would say it will be good craic, but this schedule is a little daunting to say the least:
Day 1 – Transfer from Amman to Petra and visit to the ancient city including horse ride through ruins and caves.
Having visited Petra before, at least we know what to expect here – beauty, history and heat. Hopefully this will be a good introduction to the rest of our group and to horses. We both have very very little horse riding experience – we rented horses for two hours on our honeymoon.
Day 2 – Horse riding departure from Petra to Wadi Rum
A few days ago we got to experience the Wadi Rum from our jeep, it is an expansive, imposing and beautiful place that goes on forever so it will be breathtaking and hard work trekking across it. The Wadi Rum is also about 100km from Petra – I hope we are not horse riding the whole way.
Day 3 – Horse riding in Wadi Rum and camping
I camped a lot as a scout when I was younger but we have never camped together. We have been told the camping can be pretty basic and an adventure so this should be good fun and very memorable
Day 4 – Horse riding in Wadi Rum and camping
This trip is advertised for ‘experienced riders’ so by now we should have either started to learn to ride or given up and retired to the camel or 4×4 back-up option – hopefully we are riding like the wind.
Day 5 – Horse riding in Wadi Rum and camping
If the pressure and excretions of horse riding are getting to us, at least we will have the rest of the group to get to know and mingle with. It will be nice to be with other people for a change, we will definitely interview some of the participants. I wonder if there will be any honeymoon couples?
Day 6 – Horse riding in Wadi Rum and camping
Yep, the adventure continues, we were told cycling shorts are good to protect your bum when doing a lot of riding, alas we could not find any before we left Ireland. Hopefully the riding is good exercise to work off our hotel buffet bellies.
Day 7 – Horse riding in Wadi Rum and camping
Final day on horses, last opportunity for those Lawrence of Arabia/cowboy photos and races.
Day 8 – Visit to Dead Sea on way from Wadi Rum to Amman
To relax and rejuvenate after going rogue in the desert we will stop at the lowest place on earth to bathe in healing mud and float in the salty sea – sounds heavenly.
Day 9 – Free day to explore Amman
We have spent a few nights in the Amman but have not explored it yet so it will be a nice to finish our time in Jordan by visiting the city’s sites such as the ancient Citadel ruins.
Day 10 – Leave Amman for Dublin
Bitter sweet. Will be sad to leave beautiful hot Jordan but exciting to head back to Ireland for more adventure and to find out about what RunawayBrideandGroom.com has planned for us next.
We feel really lucky to have this once in a lifetime opportunity for such an exciting and challenge adventure. If our time in Jordan so far is anything to go by then we know the desert will be full of incredible surprises and will be an amazing experience. We are nervous but will are definitely up for this as well (don’t worry parents and friends we will be careful – no broken hips thank you).
Off-Grid
We will be out of contact and away from the internet for the majority of this trip. We have still set up a lot of interesting posts and videos on the blog over the next week and as soon as we are back online we will give you a full update of our desert diary.
Watch this space… Yee Ha!