Itineraries to reach Petra and the Wadi Rum desert of Lawrence of Arabia by car and independently in Jordan. In Jordan you need an international driving license.
Regardless of the regional and political context in which the Jordan, visiting it for tourists does not present major logistical problems because the roads are good and the hotels clean and there is no sense of discomfort or concern for safety. Furthermore, I have not seen in tourist places that crowding of children asking for alms or adults selling anything; there are stalls but they don't haunt. It is a trip that I recommend.
I will speak here only of the southern part of Jordan and precisely of our two excursions: one to Wadi Rum and the other a Petra both departing from Aqaba where we stayed two nights to break the tour and take a few baths in the Red Sea. Aqaba is located a few kilometers from the border with Israel and along the coast that leads from this border to the other with Saudi Arabia, many bathing establishments have sprung up which are mostly of a high standard and therefore expensive. You can find less pretentious hotels in the city (in any case close to the sea) as well as other types of accommodation for which it is always better to check the quality of the services offered because the low price can hide deficiencies in cleanliness and insufficient services in general.
The excursions described here can be purchased at the main hotels or, as we did, you can rent a car and do it yourself bearing in mind that you must be at least 21 years of age (for smaller cars), have had a driving license for at least two years and often a surcharge is required for those under 25 years old and finally an international driving license is required. Also plan to take out adequate insurance and remember that a car rented in Jordan cannot be issued in another state.
To get to Wadi Rum we asked a local guide for help because we didn't want to go the way tour buses travel. Then we crossed from west to east what Lawrence of Arabiainstead, he crossed backwards at the command of the Arab troops to conquer Aqaba occupied by the Turks. After leaving the paved road we headed north-east relying on the compass and our guide to follow the paths in the middle of the high rocks and sand along the Old Desert Road until you reach a small village made up of tents and shelters for animals (coordinates 29 ° 25'47 ".65N - 35 ° 12'34" .10 E). From here only on sandy tracks still to the east and then turn north along the various gorges of a desert formed by sand of a wonderful color ranging from orange to old pink while seeing some rock engravings. An unparalleled landscape. After just under 80 km (in almost 4 hours) we reached Wadi Rum where there is the famous rock formation that Lawrence of Arabia called '"The seven pillars of heaven". At the end of the day we returned from the paved road.
A Petra we went without a guide as the road is the normal one and leads to the entrance of the path that goes down to the archaeological site. Petra is often talked about and everyone knows the wonders of its temples carved into the rock, the theater, the necropolis… ..and it was a construction of the necropolis, however not completed, that intrigued me for its architectural characteristics.
As can be seen very well in my photo, the construction behind the driver of the dromedary presents below four columns reminiscent of Roman civilization; immediately above you can see very well a cornice quite similar to those found on Egyptian temples and again above the typical divergent scale of Babylonian art. Here is the Meeting of Civilizations; this is the reason for the flowering of this city in the desert, here is the syncretism of three civilizations made matter in a construction that perhaps escapes the hasty tourist but which instead is perhaps more important than the temples themselves that attract crowds from all over the planet.
