Memories of Jordan (and celebrating the ‘bucket list’)

I was at a tour­ism industry con­fer­ence a few months ago listen­ing to a talk on the dev­ast­at­ing effects of COV­ID-related travel bans on her­it­age destinations. 

Pro­fess­or Mike Robin­son, the speak­er, cited Jordan as a prime example. 

Amidst my sym­pathy for the des­tin­a­tion and its people, my ‘buck­et list’ quest react­iv­ated instantly in my mind. 

It had lain dormant for almost two years through a series of lock­downs and unchar­ac­ter­ist­ic­ally tim­id attempts at travel. 

The inside track

Melanie Kay Smith is a research­er and con­sult­ant whose work focuses on urb­an plan­ning, cul­tur­al tour­ism, and the rela­tion­ship between tour­ism and well-being. Dr Smith is pro­gramme lead­er for BSc and MSc Tour­ism Man­age­ment at Bud­apest Met­ro­pol­it­an Uni­ver­sity in Hungary.

Jordan! 

Why had it taken me half a cen­tury to get around to vis­it­ing this rel­at­ively access­ible place (for those of us in Europe) and its Won­der of the World? 

Sur­prised by my zeal, my hus­band was quickly con­vinced by the chance to see Petra, and to float on the Dead Sea. 

My sons were instantly attrac­ted by the prom­ise of vis­it­ing a ‘set’ of Star Wars, and snor­kelling with Red Sea spe­cies so far unen­countered in the Mediterranean. 

One of the joys of travel is anti­cip­a­tion. COVID has unfor­tu­nately hindered that. 

Our tend­ency to plan and to wal­low in pleas­ur­able expect­a­tions of a trip is fre­quently these days marred by the late arrival of PCR test res­ults (worse still a pos­it­ive res­ult) or the can­cel­la­tion of a flight. 

More than one of our planned trips have evap­or­ated into the eth­er dur­ing this pan­dem­ic, espe­cially those with budget air­line tick­ets attached! 

This time I kept the faith and allowed myself to anti­cip­ate, and to devour much of Lonely Plan­et Jordan whilst ‘co-cre­at­ing’ a week-long tour with a loc­al company. 

I pur­chased Jordan-related stor­ies of romance that made me dream of adven­ture, like Mar­ried to a Bedouin by Mar­guer­ite van Gel­d­ermalsen and King­dom of the Film Stars by Annie Caulfield.

We got there. 

And Jordan sur­passed all expect­a­tions in a way that it may well have done even without the dearth of travel pri­or to the trip. 

Yet I had the same feel­ing of won­der and grat­it­ude that I exper­i­enced when I first returned to the theatre after two years: I appre­ci­ated every moment and felt priv­ileged to be there. 

Work­ing in tour­ism for so many years has cre­ated in me a deep sense of empathy with the res­id­ents of des­tin­a­tions whose tour­ism live­li­hoods are at the mercy of cir­cum­stances and polit­ics bey­ond their control. 

And research­ing well­ness tour­ism has helped me to be mind­ful of unique moments when I exper­i­ence them. 

Empathy and mind­ful­ness inter­sec­ted in the rose-col­oured sands of Wadi Rum (echoes of Star Wars aside). 

I bought a cup of car­damom-infused cof­fee from a loc­al man who was keen to show me his photo in a guide­book from years ago. 

He insisted on recre­at­ing the photo; don­ning his Bedouin garb to pose with his sil­ver cof­fee pot and an enthu­si­ast­ic tour­ist (me); a brief re-cap­tur­ing of his pre-COV­ID life. 

One of my oth­er favour­ite moments was watch­ing my beam­ing 12 year old son emerge from his first Turk­ish bath, fol­lowed by din­ner in a loc­al res­taur­ant where I dis­covered my favour­ite Jord­ani­an dish mak­louba (which I have re-cre­ated at home). 

What was par­tic­u­larly spe­cial about that even­ing was that we were in the environs of Petra and were eagerly anti­cip­at­ing our sun­rise vis­it the fol­low­ing morning. 

Some of our memor­ies are the stuff of dreams: 

The first glimpse of the sun­rise-tin­ted monu­ments of Petra through a gap in the rock; 

Observing a sun­set fol­lowed by a sky full of stars from a desert rock; 

Float­ing weight­lessly on the Dead Sea whilst bask­ing in the autumn sun; 

Com­ing face-to-face with a turtle while snor­kelling in the Red Sea; 

Tenu­ously mount­ing proud camels and being led through the dunes by a good-natured loc­al guide; and 

Savour­ing the deli­cious nation­al dish mensaf with hot bread that was baked beneath the desert sand. 

Oth­ers might argue that these are the clichés of guide­books and travel blogs, yet in this post-COV­ID era of travel, noth­ing should be taken for granted. 

Trav­el­ling in a time of restric­tions and fin­an­cial hard­ship is noth­ing less than a gift. 

The fact that we were able to bring some busi­ness back to a beau­ti­ful but tour­ism-depend­ent coun­try added to our sense of well-being. 

To those who lament over­tour­ism and rel­ish the new nor­mal, it is import­ant to envis­age what that means for destinations. 

I too was an over­tour­ism research­er, and I briefly cel­eb­rated the envir­on­ment­al and/or social res­pite that COVID afforded des­tin­a­tions that needed it. 

But while the eco­nom­ics of tour­ism is often viewed as a dull, or even uncom­pas­sion­ate con­sid­er­a­tion, it is argu­ably the most fun­da­ment­al for many loc­al residents. 

For this reas­on, I am cel­eb­rat­ing my return to tick­ing exper­i­ences off my ‘buck­et list’.

And I will enthu­si­ast­ic­ally plan and anti­cip­ate my next trip without fear or guilt. 

Jordan will always sym­bol­ise a return to adven­ture for me. 

And I am determ­ined to main­tain this feel­ing of mind­ful­ness, won­der, and grat­it­ude, lest travel & tour­ism ever again be taken for granted.

Where is this?

For the coordin­ates of the “GT” Travel map pin that rep­res­ents this “GT” Travel Exper­i­ence, Melanie sug­ges­ted Jord­an’s Wadi Rum, which on this trip provided “our most treas­ured memory and unlike any­where we have been before”.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Petra by Melanie Kay Smith.

Where next?