As told by DIWYY co-founder, Kristina Wegscheider, who traveled with GAP Adventures to Jordan in March-April 2010.
Tour Operator: GAP Adventures
Trip Name: Highlights of Jordan
Starting/Ending Point: This trip starts and ends in the capital city of Amman.
Number of Days: 10 days
When I went: I traveled in March-April of 2010.
Highlights of trip: My trip began in Amman where I arrived one day before the tour officially started. In the city, there are several sites to visit including the King Hussein Mosque, the Citadel, and the Roman Theater. After a day of getting acclimated, I met my twelve fellow travelers and our guide, Abdul. The first few days were spent doing day trips to nearby locations such as the historic city of Jerash and a dip in the Dead Sea. Jerash was absolutely amazing and well-preserved. We took the time to explore the entire property and, as a result, found ourselves at the far edge where most tourists never take the time to come. Our reward? Peace and silence at the North Amphitheater. Another day took us to the tranquil Dead Sea where we were able to experience the extreme salinity of the water which allowed us to float with absolutely no effort.
Venturing out of Amman, we found ourselves transversing the King’s Highway with stops at sights like Mount Nebo, Madaba, and Karak, home of an ancient castle. Our final destination for the day was Wadi Musa, placing us at the footsteps of Petra. The next day was devoted to exploring this World Heritage Site and no corner was left unexplored. As a group, we navigated through the Siq, the narrow gorge, which guides you the awe-inspiring view of the Treasury, the facade most people associate with Jordan and Petra. Passing by this landmark, there is much more Petra to explore…you can easily spend all day hiking up to several vantage points to get a bird’s eye view of this ancient civilization.
Continuing on, the tour heads to Wadi Rum, made famous by the 1962 film, Lawrence of Arabia, where travelers can explore the remote landscape and experience a Bedouin camp for the night. After a day of exploring the desert-like landscape, the group travels to the southernmost point on the itinerary to the coastal city of Aqaba. This small port town, integral to Jordan’s economy, allows visitors a chance to see the Red Sea and take part in water sports like scuba diving, snorkeling, or windsurfing.
Kristina’s Tips:
- Jordan is a predominantly Muslim country so conservative dress is a must. For the city days, I opted for jeans, comfortable shoes, and long-sleeve shirts. Once we were in places like Petra and Wadi Rum, I opted for workout clothing and athletic shoes.
- Amman is a surprisingly hilly city! Expect to climb some serious staircases to get between places. My Cole Haan ballet flats did the job. Style and comfort!
- If you are super hungry at a meal, opt for the mezze (salad, bread, and assorted dips) course as well as an entree. If you’re looking for lighter fare, you can easily make a meal out of the mezze!
- Every hotel we stayed at had the same breakfast food and it was pretty lackluster. Instead, head down to the city center and grab a falafel from one of the street vendors.
- If you visit the Dead Sea, I recommend bringing a water shoe with as the beach is quite rocky.
- Do your homework on Visas. Most nationalities can get a single-entry Jordan Visa on arrival at the Amman airport and some land border crossings. If you plan to visit a neighboring country (Syria, Israel, and Egypt are all nearby), you may want to take care all of your Visas prior to leaving on your trip.
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I live here and took my family on pretty much the same tour. The only places I think are missing are Um Qais and Dana Nature Reserve. Um Qais is Jordan’s view of the Golan Heights. You can see Palestine, Lebanon and Syria and while you wander around Roman and Ottoman ruins or sip wine at the Um Qais Resthouse. It’s about an hour north of Jarash in the northwest corner of the country. Also, if you have an extra day or two, head to Dana Nature Reserve, north of Petra. You can either camp in one of the designated areas or stay at the Feynan Ecolodge. The landscapes, ruins and wildlife are fantastic.
GAp, are not worth the money. They make you eat at expensive restaurants so the guides get free meals, and change your accomodtion then belittle you in front of the group for questioning it. We were on a tight budget and were made to feel like scroungers for complaining that the indivated m,eals were not included, and the hotels changed to camping. Our tour guide had 3 ppl crying, and almost everyone vowing to complain upon return. Will I hear from GAP at all after complaining? it reamins to be seen. Here is my letter-
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing in regard to a recent ‘South America Overland – La Paz to Rio’ trip that my girlfriend Rachel Mullaney and I took part in dating from the 8th of June till the 6th July 2009. We feel that various aspects of the trip did not live up to the itineray as sold by Gap Adventure and as such would like to make a complaint concerning the areas we felt we were miss sold, and request a refund for the unsatisfactory aspects of the tour. The areas we are concerned with include transportation, provision for meals and accomodation, all of which at points along the journey did not live up to what was advertised.
Firstly the tour is advertised as an ‘overland tour’ in an overland truck. However we were actually given two 4×4 vehicles. Every other gap tour group we met had been given a different story as to why an overland truck was not available and the reason we were given that the truck could not get a permit to leave peru is not believable, as if this is the case why advertise this form of transport?
The 4×4′s broke down constantly (to the point where their road safety was questionable), allowed in copious amounts of dust, and more importantly one car actually only had space for four people, not five. This meant that if you were at either side you were sitting on both heightened plastic ledge and the lower seat. Given also that the suspension on this 4×4 went halfway through the trip, it was terribly uncomfortable. The journeys were often 10-16 hours long and to be barely able to walk for the next day after such a journey is entirely unacceptable. When booking a tour such as this you expect to be very comfortable, when in fact public transport would have been far more comfortable and a lot cheaper.
The constant theme of the tour appeared to be that whilst the itinary never changed, GAP(or our tour guide, it was uncertain as to which) had cut a lot of costs. The accomodation was an issue here, where in Iguassu falls we were made to camp instead of being in a hotel room for three nights. Our tour leader told us that the hotel we were meant to stay in was 90 reais a night, whereas our camping was only 15. Therefore I would like to be refunded the difference for those 3 nights for myself and Rachel as we had in fact paid for those nights in the cost of the trip. What was also massively hypotrical was the tour guides response to our questioning as to why the accomodation had been changed. He was very rude and abrupt and upset my girlfriend. He also declared that if he had it his way the whole trip would be camping, and then upon arrival at Foz de Iguassu he promptly upgraded himself into a room and left us to camp. The fact that we were offered an upgrade to a room for a fee was even more insulting, as it was clear there were plenty of rooms for everyone that GAP just did not want to pay for.
Another issue throughout the trip was the lack of included meals. We did not recieve half of them, particularly in Brazil. The GAP website advises to bring $400 for food, and we easily spent double that. When we would question our tour guide as to why the meals that were indicated as being included on the itinary were not included he was again very rude, stating that GAP do not give him a budget that would cover all the meals meant to be included in Brazil. If we were travelling for a whole day and arrived at the campsite at night he would also say it was simply too late to cook, again getting out of giving us the food we paid for. In Bolivia on a long journey we were once given a packed lunch, this would have been a satisfactory solution in Brazil also, however the guide said that there simply was not a budget for a packed lunch in Brazil.
The meals that the tour guide did include were often questionable. For example one dinner in Chochis was a plate of horsemeat to be passed around and eaten, the next night a plate of beef. Whilst we were grateful to actually be getting a meal that we were entitled to, many of the group were not keen on just eating ‘finger food’ meat for every meal. Another example would be the one included meal in Paraty (out of 3 nights where all meals were meant to be included) when he asked us all to be back at 3pm for lunch, but did not cook it until 5pm therefore wasting our day and also avoiding cooking any dinner. It was at this point where everyone in our group had given up asking the guide why things were not included as doing so invited no useful response and generally illicted both rude and confrontational behaviour from the guide.
Even more irritating was the fact that because we did not know which meals would or would not be included it meant that we would sometimes be left with no choice other than to miss meals and go to bed hungry. On journeys we would be left with no choice but to pay for food in expensive service stations/ roadside restaurants or wait until our destination where potentially no food would be offered. If David had been honest and said ‘there are no meals included in Brazil’ we could have purchased our own food from the supermarket as we would usually do when travelling instead of always eating out.
Myself and Rachel were sold the trip as including a lot of meals, and the itinary indicated every camping meal included and many of the travelling days had meals included too. This is why paying £1150 and a $600 local payment each in total for the trip seemed worth it as we knew we could have a smaller budget as most food was included. However given that half the food was not included and we spent double the $400 estimated food cost, we would both like to be refunded for the food we had to buy.
It is clear that we recieved a cut cost version of the trip that we paid full price for, and this is simply unacceptable.GAPs cost cutting measures for no other reason than to save the company money at the expense of the tour group
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