AQABA, Jordan _ On Day 38, the temperature hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit.
Like a slow animal, I slid into a narrow crescent of purple shade, napping beneath a rocky overhang until the sun softened in the late afternoon. The song of a shepherd's flute echoed off the canyon wall, and the sky glowed an almost digital blue.
By dusk I was hiking once again, shoes in sand, sifting through a mile of empty desert as a full white moon rose from behind a broken wall of mountains. The rippled dunes went on forever. Camels hovered on the horizon. The silence was tremendous. Night came with a spread of stars and a cooling breeze that gently ruffled my tent until I was lost in sleep.
Nowhere on Earth have I felt the unbelievable calm that I experienced on the Jordan Trail. This newly mapped 400-mile route leads walkers across the up-and-down landscapes and through the staggering history of this impressive little kingdom.
I began my hike in the northern village of Umm Qais, a cobblestone village mentioned in the New Testament _ the place where Jesus cast demonic spirits into a herd of swine and sent them tumbling over a cliff.
For the first two weeks of hiking, I could feel my legs getting stronger as I tackled small hills painted green with springtime wheat. Olive groves and lemon trees shaded the path, along with the ancient Corinthian columns of many a Greek ruin. The epic past sits on the surface of Jordan. There were moments on the trail when I found myself sifting through shards of Roman pottery or the Stone Age tools of an even older civilization, before trudging up the well-worn steps of a crusader castle.
About half the time on the trail, I camped in my own tent, enjoying the quiet wilderness and the pastoral view that I unzipped each morning. In larger towns, I checked into hotels for a hot, soapy shower and a fluffy bed. The rest of the time, I stayed with locals as part of the Jordan Trail's home-stay program. The complete trail network includes 52 smaller communities, where participating families host passing hikers for the night. Nothing beats breaking (fresh-baked) bread with a Jordanian family in their own home, all of us gathered together on the floor and dipping into plates of homemade hummus or aromatic rice and chicken roasted over a fire. In time, I found myself speaking more Arabic than I ever thought I could learn, while even the youngest children on the street know enough English to shout out, "Welcome to Jordan!"
The Jordan Trail is not exclusively for the young and athletic. Before this trip, I'd never hiked more than five days in a row. I didn't undergo any special training for my long-distance trek; I simply started walking, pushing through the first days and feeling my body getting stronger and leaner as the weeks flew past.
