Hi there!
I have just came back from 4 days of hiking in some beautiful wadis (rivers) in Jordan, just near the north-east coast of the Dead Sea. The wadis we hiked were: Wadi Mukheiris, Wadi Manshala, Wadi Himara, Wadi Daba & Wadi Atun.
We started on Friday the 6th of April when we crossed the border from Israel to Jordan in the Sheikh Hussein crossing on the Jordan River (near Beit She'an, IL). We took a taxi to movenpeek hotel, on the north-east coast of the Dead sea, where we planned to start our trip. On the way we stopped to buy some food for 4 days.
After about 2 hours driving in the taxi we reached our starting point. We started hiking up in Wadi Mukheiris. It's a beautiful wadi with streaming water, canyons and some small waterfalls. The water in the wadi were a bit salty in the beginning but got better as long as we walked up the stream. Some of the waterfalls we had to bypass around, climbing on rocks and the steep sides of the canyon. In the end of our trip in the wadi we reached a tall waterfall of about 20m and a very nice cave with water coming from the middle of it. We stayed the night in the wadi and on the 2nd day we continued to Wadi Manshala.
We climbed out from Wadi Mukheiris and started walking towards Wadi Manshala. It is also very beautiful, as the last wadi, with lots of palm trees hanging from the side walls of the canyon. In this wadi we walked down through it, also bypassing some waterfalls we could not go through. In the end (the middle of the wadi) we reached a waterfall we could not go down, that was where our trail went outside of the wadi. We climbed out and spent the night above the wadi.
On the 3rd day we continued to Wadi Himara. On the way we saw a lot of sheep herds, ewes (mother sheep) and lambs. When we got to Wadi Himara we walked down in it until we've reached the tallest waterfall in Jordan- 80m high. Its stream was quite weak but still if was very nice. We went down, bypassing the waterfall, just to reach the bottom of it. from the we continued in the wadi until we got to the 2nd 80m waterfall, only this one got out from the canyon through a crack in the red stone wall of the canyon. This waterfall was beautiful from its top. It was too bad that going down is only possible with climbing equipment (ropes...). That was the spot where our trip in the wadi ended. We got out of it and walked down west towards the road on the coast of the Dead Sea.
Because we had planned our trip for 4 days and finished the trek in 3 we've decided to start another hick in another wadi- Wadi Zarqa Ma'in. We planned to hitch-hick to the starting point of the trek, just near Hammamat Ma'in (Hot spa), and from there to descend. We've succeeded to hitch-hick to the junction above Hammamat Ma'in. But when we tried to go down to the starting point (avoiding the road and the buildings down) we did not find a suitable way to do so. It was already evening so we decided to stop, spend the night there, and decide what to do the next morning.
In the morning of the 4th day we went back to the junction above Hammamat Ma'in and hitch-hiked to two wadis we wanted to visit: Wadi Atun & Wadi Daba. First we went to Wadi Daba. It is a 30min walk in each direction. The Wadi has a stream of hot water. As you go further into the wadi the water gets warmer. It was very nice. 2nd we went to Wadi Atun, also with a stream of hot water. Here it's about 1h in each direction. In the end of the "way" there is a 15m waterfall of cold water and beside it there is a hot stream that created a hot "bath". So we took a cold shower and a hot bath...
After that we came back to the road where we set to meet Amjad our taxi drive. We met him and started our drive back to the border crossing, not forgetting to stop to buy some Arab sweets and Guava juice.
One thing we forgot to buy in the beginning of the trip- tea, coffee & sugar. All the trip we had talked about it... Any way it was a GREAT trip!!
