Around Jordan in the footsteps of Tintin (small dog not incl
-
Blistering Barnacles: Around Jordan in the footsteps of Tintin (small dog not included)
By GEORGINA BREWSTER
Last updated at 4:09 PM on 1st September 2010It was remarkable in an era when commercial flights were only just taking off. Tintin even trumped Neil Armstrong by some 15 years with his lunar landing in the adventure Explorers On the Moon in 1954, his faithful companions Captain Haddock and Snowy the dog in attendance.
Dog days: Tintin enjoyed many a great adventure - and even made it to the moon
Some of his exploits make James Bond's assignments look like pleasure cruises. Confronting drug dealers, oil barons, despots and arms traders was all in a day's work for the quiff-haired teenager.
So it was only a matter of time before two things happened. First, that Hollywood would bring this Belgian cartoon character to the big screen - and what better directorial pairing than Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, to make the Secret Of the Unicorn. Jackson is busy digitally animating Spielberg's live footage filmed with a host of British actors.
Jamie Bell plays Tintin, Daniel Craig is Red Rackham and Andy Serkis takes on Captain Haddock.
Should the first film prove successful next year, Spielberg plans to make two more. The second inevitability was that an enterprising tour operator would be inspired by Tintin's perpetual jet-setting. Step forward, please, On the Go tours which, with the backing of Moulinsart (the rights-holder to the Tintin adventures), now offers guided holidays to three of his favourite destinations: Jordan, Egypt and India.
As a long-time admirer of my brother's Tintin albums, I couldn't resist seeing first-hand some of the locations depicted in the Red Sea Sharks and Land Of Black Gold, largely set in Jordan (or the Emirate of Khemed in the stories). i joined a party of nine like-minded souls, including Michael Farr, our official Tintin expert, Eid, a local guide of Bedouin decent, and 11-year-old Ben from London, an ardent fan of Tintin travelling with his father.
The start of our eight-day tour began gently enough with a night in a spa hotel and a relaxing morning soak in the warm salty waters of the Dead Sea, 1,300ft below sea level. This was just to soften us up for the cartoon capers which lay ahead.
After lunch, a minibus drove us for two hours south over twisting mountain roads and empty plains, stopping briefly at Shobak castle, once home to the Crusaders.
Eventually, from out of nowhere on a deserted side road, we drew up alongside a gathering of horses, saddled up and held by men in traditional robes and keffiyeh headscarfs. Nervous glances were exchanged in the bus, until Eid leapt out and greeted them like old friends. These fine Arab thoroughbreds would transport us along the side of a valley into Wadi Musa, the village surrounding ancient Petra, and supper would be served in a Bedouin tent half way along our two-hour journey. I loved every minute in the saddle, my new keffiyeh billowing over my shoulders and my mare trotting at the lightest touch of a heel.
As the sun set behind the dusty hills with the lights of Wadi Musa ahead, my heart sank a little; our ride was coming to an end.
Michael, on the other hand, could hardly contain his excitement: 'This couldn't be more like tintin and Haddock's arrival in the city,' he exclaimed. At one point, i thought he was going to utter the Captain's catchphrase: 'Blistering barnacles.'
Michael had grown up reading Tintin in the Fifties, and later, living in Brussels as a foreign correspondent, he'd befriended Herge, Tintin's creator. He's since written many books on Herge's cartoon characters, studying the artist's archives in detail.
Herge (real name Georges Remi) first introduced Tintin in a Belgian newspaper in 1929 and wrote 24 albums of his adventures, now translated into 70 languages.
Back in the saddle, we rode up to the gates of our hotel in Wadi Musa feeling elated, but somewhat stiff. All the healing effects of that morning's black mud massage had evaporated.
The Beit Zaman hotel, a brief bus ride away, was to be our home for two nights.
The low-rise stone built bedrooms were once houses within a 17th-century village and nicely echoed the look of Wadesdah, an imaginary town in The Red Sea Sharks where Tintin takes refuge from the Desert Police.
We swam in the pool, then settled quickly into the bar to hear more anecdotes about Herge.
In contrast to Tintin, Michael explained, Herge was essentially 'an armchair traveller'.
His newspaper strip kept him too busy to go abroad; so he hoarded postcards, photographs, cuttings and travel tickets to replicate in his stories.
World Wonder: Petra is an amazing sight for cartoon explorers and modern tourists alike
A main source of inspiration for his distant landscapes was the brilliant colour photography of National Geographic magazine.
He always made his narrative topical, writing about war in the late Thirties and Middle Eastern oil and land conflicts in the Fifties.
In The Red Sea Sharks, Tintin and Haddock ride into the Rose-Red City in search of an exiled Emir who's taken refuge in the caves.
Early the next morning we re-enacted their passage through the sylph-like Siq, this time on foot.
The path is about a mile long and at the end sits one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
On first sight of it, Captain Haddock declares: 'Thundering typhoons! ... A Roman Temple, hewn from the rock! ... Incredible!'
We all agreed the Treasury was indeed incredible and that the monumental pink sandstone facade has shades of classical architecture.
In fact, it was built as a tomb in the 1st century BC by the Nabateans, a nomadic Arabian tribe which established a base at Petra for trading precious goods between East and West.
Further round the corner we found a sprawling city of tombs, an amphitheatre, market place and palaces (a legacy of the Romans who settled in the 2nd century AD) and Byzantine churches.
A chance encounter with an U.S. archaeologist revealed that barely two per cent of Petra's ruins have been excavated in 200 years.
We did our best to see most of the current treasures over a day-and-a-half before our next appointment with the minibus.
The hour's drive took us further south to the gated entrance of Wadi Rum (Wadi meaning valley; Rum the imposing 5,698ft mountain) where we surveyed a blanket of red sand, flanked by towering peaks.
During the Arab Revolt of 1916, Wadi Rum was the home of T. E. Lawrence. One peak he christened The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, later to become the title of his famous book.
We swapped our minibus for jeeps, leaving tracks in the sand like the Thomson/Thompson duo in Land Of Black Gold, and arrived at our overnight base in the valley at sundown, quickly scrambling up a rock face to gaze at the mountains, suffused in a purple haze.
The semi-permanent camp was highly civilised with flushing loos, showers and raised tents with wooden beds.
Supper was a spectacle: zarb chicken cooked in a round barbecue buried deep in the sand.
Floating voter: Georgina learns more about Tintin's adventures while taking a dip in the Dead Sea
Later, around the campfire, we stared at the stars and listened to our Bedouin hosts singing, accompanied by the oud guitar.
Morning broke to the call of camels echoing around the valley, so before the sun burned too fiercely we mounted our dromedaries and set off along the valley.
But not before Eid, a man of impeccable camel-riding credentials treated us to a surprise impersonation of clumsy Captain Haddock by toppling off his steed in his haste to get going.
The camel train edged us slowly towards the end of Wadi Rum, then our minibus sped us down to Aqaba on the Red Sea.
Tintin tackled all manner of foes on these open waters, but we had nothing more taxing planned than two nights in a five-star hotel and a day trip cruising to Pharoan Island to look at a Byzantine fortress, eat lunch and snorkel above the coral reefs.
Our last night was spent in the capital city Amman, where we'd first landed.
It had been an amazing adventure, one of which Herge would have been rightly proud.
Travel Facts
On The Go's guided Tintin tour of Jordan and Petra starts at £2,029pp, including six nights in four- or five-star hotels, one in Wadi Rum, some meals, flights, transport and activities (020 7371 1113, www.onthegotours.com).
Check for family tours and those accompanied by one of three 'Tintinologists'