march-2011

FEATURES | AMMAN
silver jewellery at the Nature Shop. But the
rear terrace is the real draw: visit at sunset
for amazing panoramic views of the city.
Yet 21st-century green thinking doesn’t
stop at the city limits. A three-hour drive
south of Amman lies the ancient “lost city”
of Petra, once capital of a trading empire
that stretched into Syria and Arabia. Even
here, among tombs and temples carved into
a hidden mountain valley, environmental
awareness is having an impact. For years
the authorities struggled to provide suitable
toilet facilities within this vast, dusty
UNESCO-protected site. Technology
has, thankfully, caught up: today, as you
stroll between the monuments, you’ll
spot environmentally friendly eco-toilets
distributed discreetly along the main path.
But it’s in Jordan’s less-visited wilderness
areas that you can start to get under the skin
of this unsung eco-destination. Distances
are small, landscapes are varied and there’s
a good infrastructure for rural tourism. Only
75km north of Amman, the modest market
town of Ajloun stands amid dense forests
at 1,000m above sea level: up here the air is
fresh and the scenery is green and beautiful.
Ajloun’s 800-year-old castle, built by
Saladin’s armies to defend against the
Crusaders, is a popular attraction, visible for
miles around silhouetted on a hilltop. Here,
you can spend a fi ne afternoon roaming
around its old rooms and climbing stone
staircases to emerge at the highest point
of the ruins for a spectacular view over the
orchards, olive groves and country villages.
It may have slipped your attention,
but 2011 is International Year of Forests,
so it’s the perfect time to book a stay in
the RSCN’s Ajloun Forest Reserve (from
52 | TRAVELLER | MARCH 11
JD59; tel: +962 (0)6 463 3589, rscn.org.jo),
outside the town. Quiet country lanes lead
to the reserve buildings, set in the heart of
rolling Mediterranean woodland – mainly
evergreen oak, with pistachio, carob and
wild strawberry trees among the olives.
WHEN I ARRIVED, Louai Al-Nimry,
tourism manager at the reserve, was
waiting to welcome me with a glass of
sage tea and a run-through of the reserve’s
fauna, which includes some very European
names (foxes, badgers and wild boar)
alongside wildcats, striped hyena and
Asiatic jackals. Roe deer, previously extinct
here, now roam freely within the reserve.
Louai’s enthusiasm is infectious; born and
raised in the adjacent village of Orjan, he
explained how he’d rejected job offers from
big hotels to come back to the countryside.
This kind of attitude permeates the
whole place. All the food served at dinner
and breakfast is locally produced, from the
yoghurt and goat’s cheese to the chicken,
fresh-baked bread, wild herbs and fruit jam.
One of the reserve’s many walking trails
leads to Rasoun village, where I stopped
in at the Soap House, an RSCN project to
employ local women making luxury olive-oil
soap. Manager Rima Hamzat showed me
around, explaining how village families are
benefi ting from this new source of income.
“Before this project we didn’t do anything,”
she told me. “Now our girls are able to study
at university and have work in our village.”
Far to the east, in Jordan’s open, stony
deserts, the Azraq oasis, which attracts
migrating birds in their thousands, is now
protected as a wetland habitat, home to
TELLER
MATTHEW PHOTOLIBRARY, SUPERSTOCK,
Clockwise from top,
©
an Arabian oryx, the
Azraq wetlands, Aljoun’s
800-year-old castle PHOTOS