Recovering from the savage dog bite that marred her first attempt in early December, Alice Morrison has completed the 675km Jordan Trail. She and her guide, Muther Al Titi, took 40 days to complete the route, which combines several existing trails into a single mega-trail that passes through 75 villages.
Morrison started in the north at Um Qais and headed south to the Red Sea.
She had initially planned to finish in 35 days, but on her first day a dog bit her and left her with a deep wound in her leg. After healing for nine days, she restarted on December 12.
After completing the hike, she admitted, “This has been much tougher than I imagined.” The first 10 days after her restart were particularly challenging. She had assumed that she would find the terrain fairly easy after her previous expeditions across the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara. She soon realized that she had underestimated the trail.
A friendlier dog than the one that bit her back in December. Photo: @aliceoutthere1
The hills were steep, and rather than switchback their way uphill, her guide felt that “Jordanians…like to go straight,” and preferred the direttissima approach. Torrential rain meant that they sometimes trudged with “a kilo of mud on each boot”.
Morrison was not doing the hike to break any records or forge a new route. Several people complete the Jordan Trail each year, and many more do pieces of it.
The trail appeals to a hiker’s inner archaeologist, passing through the ancient ruins of Petra and the sandstone slots of Wadi Rum. David Lean’s visuals of Wadi Rum in the famous movie about Lawrence of Arabia supposedly started Jordan’s nascent tourist industry.
Wadi Rum. Photo: Shutterstock
