Drying Off in Jordan
Writing and dry images by Giacomo Abrusci
Wet images by U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/U.S. Fifth Fleet
ometimes some of the best dive sites are half a world away from home and you need to plan accordingly between decompressing from a coral shelf and
climbing 30,000 feet in the air on a 747. In this new series, “Drying off,” we will start to discover sustainable and adventurous activities and destinations just outside of the water.
As you probably already know, the Red Sea is up there in one of the more magnificent places to explore under water. It gets as deep as 2211 m (7254 ft) in the central trench with an average depth of 490 m (1,608 ft). But for me at least, the exciting parts are the extensive shallow shelves for the marine life and corals- specifically the northeastern tip, in the Gulf of Aqaba. The Red Sea is the world’s northernmost tropical sea with over 1,000 invertebrate species, and 200 soft and hard corals. There are literally tons of abandoned wrecks, from army tanks to cargo ships, now glistening with corals and schools of fish- something you have to see with your own eyes. But enough about that, time to dry off. After all Aqaba's location next to Wadi Rum and Petra has placed it in Jordan's golden triangle of tourism, which strengthened the city's location on the world map and made it one of the major tourist attractions.
The Kingdom of Jordan has held a soft spot in my heart since I spent a summer there in 2001 and it has only become a more exciting tourist destination ever since. Amman is a bustling capital city with world class hotels and restaurants - Rainbow Road is probably where you’ll end up for cafes, shopping, street food, and to sit down with some sheesha. I was traveling with The Mediterranean Experience of Ecotourism (MEET) so we weren’t wasting any time. The MEET project of IUCN aims to improve the sustainability and the rationalization in distribution of the tourism sector in the Mediterranean region - go to them before you plan anything Mediterranean. This strategic project involves 10 countries of the region: Italy, France, Spain, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Malta, Cyprus, Greece and Tunisia.
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