Jordan

Come for Petra, stay for the tea.

Jordan may wear its wonders on its sleeve – the rose-red city, the Dead Sea, the Roman columns of Jerash – but it’s the space in between that stays with you. A night under stars in Wadi Rum. A mint leaf swirling in a chipped glass. The silence between desert rocks, broken only by a call to prayer. Amman was louder than expected. Honking taxis, neon falafel signs, hill after hill after hill.

I floated in the Dead Sea and felt ridiculous. Slippery, salty, weightless, suspended in a place that sinks deeper every year. Later, in Jerash, I sat on a Roman column while schoolkids played football beside broken arches.

This isn’t a place to rush. You don’t need a 4x4 to cross the sands. Just a seat on a bus, a warm breeze, and maybe a falafel wrap. The rest will come.