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Hot Rock : Jordan & SyriaMarch-April 2008 |
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We
will spend a day or two in Aqaba, pleasantly situated on the Red Sea coast,
recovering from our time in Sinai, before we head northwards to what must
be contender for the best climbing destination in the world, Wadi Rum.
T. E. Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia) described entering the Wadi in his book 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom'.
"The hills drew together until only two miles divided them, and then, towering gradually till their parallel parapets must have been a thousand foot above us, ran forward in an avenue for miles ...
The Arab armies would have been lost in the length and breadth of it, and within its walls a squadron of airplanes could have wheeled in formation. Our little caravan grew quiet and self conscious, afraid and ashamed to flaunt its smallness in the presence of stupendous hills."
Every visitor and climber will be overawed upon entering the Wadi. We will
head to the ever expanding Bedouin village of Rum, where we will stay for
a while. The area was first opened for climbing by Tony Howard, when he 
did
a study for the Jordanian tourist ministry 20 years ago. He documented existing
Bedouin climbs to the summits of many of the Jebels (mountains) as well as
his own extensive climbs and explorations.
There are plenty of easier offerings, many of them early Bedouin trade routes, and of a more mountaineering nature. There are also plenty of trad routes. Some classics of the earlier development of Wadi Rum, such as 'The Beauty', 'Merlin's wand' and 'Alan and his Perverse Frog,' provide a nice introduction to the climbing, being typical of Wadi Rum, with their sparse protection but fantastic situations. Later additions such as the 22-pitch E4 'Strubel Peter' offer massive outings. There are also some hard single pitch sports routes dotted around the Wadi for those needing some finger pain.
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Petra gallery |
Rum Gallery |
We
will have lots of time to fully explore the area fully, and tick many of the
routes that have caught our eye, before we hit the road once more, and make
our way to Petra, the 'rose red city, half as old as time'.
More
famous for being the temple in the final scenes of ‘Indiana Jones and
the Last Crusade,’ Petra is actually a huge lost city and in my view
the most impressive ruin anywhere in the world. Dating back to 2000BC, the
only access to this hidden city of the Nabataeans is through the Great Siq,
a 2-mile long canyon, over 100m high and often only 2-3m wide.
At the end of the siq, 
the
canyon widens to reveal ‘the treasury’ an enormous building carved
out of solid rock.
There is a famous magazine front cover of Don Whillans climbing the square-cut
notches next to the treasury back in the 60's, at the invitation of Jordan’s
King Hussein, to explore the myth of treasure in the urn at the top of the
temple. It did indeed prove to be but a myth, but this doesn’t diminish
the splendour of Petra, nor the impact it will have on you.
Petra will remain eternally burned into your mind, a massive area of ruins rich in history and story. We will spend at least a couple of days there, soaking up the ambience during the day, soaking in wonderful Turkish baths and steam rooms during the evenings.
Continuing,
we stop off at the Dead Sea, for a hilarious dip in its salt-rich waters,
where you can float around like a clown, and all your cuts and grazes sting
like hell for a week (it’s supposed to be good for you apparently!)
Then we drive north, stopping briefly in Amman, the capital, and Jerash, the roman ruins, before we reach the Syrian border.
Syria
We
will head straight to a climbing destination in the South of the country,
which is, as far as we know, the only climbing in Syria. There is every exciting
likelihood that we will be amongst the first westerners to climb here.
Developed by Juerg Neidhardt and others, this extensive area
of perfect limestone outcrops currently has over a hundred bolted routes and
at least 80 specific boulder problems in their own specific guide, but there
is virtually limitless potential for further new routing. I am in touch with
Juerg and we have his topos. We’ll be the first Hot Rock expedition
to climb in Syria
and
will hopefully meet up with some of the local climbers to develop some more
bolted routes.
You can check out more about Syrian climbing in his free online guidebook
that is linked to the Hot Rock website. He says of Syria
"... is like taking a jump back 25 years, not because classic cars and
even donkey carts are a familiar sight on the roads, but because people have
kept many of the values we have unfortunately lost in Europe. The same time
jump is experienced while climbing in Syria.
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Here there is no full car park ... and nobody is throwing their
backpacks on your 
gear
or blocking the base of climbs for hours. Here, you can climb on your own,
hear the birds singing, enjoy the nice weather and watch the sheep grazing
... All the climbing areas are located on cliffs featuring perfect limestone,
the protection is excellent and there are enough developed climbs and boulder
problems for days of pleasure."
After spending a little time here, we will head to Damascus, Syria's capital
and the oldest continually inhabited city in the world. We’ll spend
a couple of days wandering around the mosques and old bazaars haggling over
everything and anything.
Although there are no reports of climbing in north Syria, we will still keep
our eyes peeled, as always, for possible climbing as we make our way to Crac
des Chevaliers (castle of knights), one of the premier attractions in Syria.
This huge crusader fort built in 1150 is truly massive and used to control
the high pass between Lebanon and the inland deserts. Here, we can entertain
the possibility of driving into Lebanon for a couple of days, as there are
a few developed climbing areas, and it may be an interesting country for people
to see.
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From Crac, we drive to Palmyra. This virtually deserted oasis is the site of the 19th century BC town of Tadmor. Later occupied by the Romans, there are extensively excavated ruins with wide colonnaded streets and temples. Camping out in the desert we will have time to explore the site before heading north to Hama, described as being one of the most attractive towns in the whole country. We’ll enjoy taking in the peaceful backstreets, or the bustling markets full of veiled women and traders, before we head to the border, in anticipation of yet another bureaucratic nightmare as we try to cross from one country to another with our Big Red Truck!
From Syria we head out of the Middle East and into Turkey, crossroads of East and West, Asia and Europe. Turkey signifies the end of our Africa journey and the start of the mighty overland Silk Route through Asia, as we travel and climb all the way to Singapore over the next year or so.
