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 <strong>2011</strong> 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
AZRAQ OASIS ATTRACTS MIGRATING BIRDS IN THEIR THOUSANDS, AND IS NOW A PROTECTED ENVIRONMENT FEATURES | AMMAN MARCH 11 | TRAVELLER | 53
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