I love rocks: Guided through Jordan to Wadi Rum

I didn't plan this trip myself, I booked it: a guided bike tour with a local guide, a support vehicle and luggage transport. For destinations this far away I like doing it that way, and Jordan was worth it. Six days on the bike take us from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea: from Madaba via Karak and Petra through the Wadi Rum desert to Aqaba.

Day 1: Madaba – Mukawir

Here we go, and straight away at 34 degrees. We roll along small tarmac roads through the hills south of Madaba. It's greener than I expected: olive trees, meadows, pines, simple houses in between and the odd goat by the roadside.

On the way we pass Mount Nebo. According to tradition, this is where Moses looked out over the Promised Land. In the afternoon we reach Mukawir and spend the night in a simple homestay. Above the village lie the remains of Machaerus, one of Herod's fortresses.

Day 2: Mukawir – Dead Sea – Karak

Today we go down, a long way down. The descent winds through barren, yellow-brown hills to the Dead Sea, more than 400 metres below sea level. White salt crusts glitter along the shore. Of course we stop for a quick float in the salty water.

Then it gets hot. Properly hot. On the Dead Sea Highway my Garmin shows 38 degrees, and there's no shade anywhere. The road cuts through narrow red canyons, and once again I notice: I love these rocky landscapes and canyons.

To finish, there's a long and partly steep climb up to Karak, still under the merciless Jordanian sun. At the top sits the 12th-century Crusader castle. Over 80 kilometres and more than 1,500 metres of climbing: a beautiful day, but a really tough one. And I'm slowly starting to wonder why this trip needs mountain bikes at all. So far it's been almost all tarmac.

Day 3: Karak – the middle of nowhere, in rain and fog

Overnight the temperature plummets: instead of 38 it's now 7 to 13 degrees. The first climb is still beautiful, even with drizzle and clouds hanging low over the mountains. Then the rain gets heavier and the fog so dense we can barely see a thing. We have to abort. That hurts, because these are exactly the mountains I wanted to see.

We spend the evening in Dana, an old stone village on the edge of the Dana Biosphere Reserve, Jordan's largest nature reserve. Even in the fog the place has something special.

Day 4: Dana – Shobak, straight into a hailstorm

The morning starts promisingly: a flock of sheep crosses the road and we ride right through the middle of it. Our first stop is Shobak, another Crusader castle on a hill above the valley. The road up is short, but with up to 17 per cent it's seriously steep.

The plan is to ride all the way to Petra today. But then a storm rolls in, with hail and even snow. The temperature drops to 1 degree. Once again we have to call it off, and the bikes go onto the pickup. Missing out on so much great riding two days in a row really hurts my heart in that moment. But that's the outdoors: the weather always has a say.

Rest day in Petra

Today the bike stays put, and that's fine by me. Petra is the ancient rock city of the Nabataeans. The way in leads through the Siq, a narrow gorge with glowing red rock walls. At its end the view opens onto the Treasury. Even if you've seen the picture a hundred times: in real life it's even more impressive.

Further up, the Monastery, Ad Deir, waits around 800 steps above the valley. The legs may have the day off, but even a rest day doesn't come without some climbing.

Day 5: From Petra into the Wadi Rum desert

This is what we came for. The queen stage of the trip, and finally we head properly off-road. It's back to 30 degrees, and on tracks and stony paths we ride through a landscape that leaves me speechless: vast, barren, rocky. This is how I imagined Jordan, and it's even better. The first big highlight of this trip. And now I know why we brought mountain bikes.

After almost 90 kilometres, the last 10 to the village of Rum really drag. The suffering is soon forgotten, though: 4x4s pick us up and take us across the sand tracks to our desert camp. In the evening the sun sets behind the rocks.

Day 6: Wadi Rum – Aqaba

I love rocks. And Wadi Rum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011, has more than enough of them. The first 18 kilometres run off-road through the desert, and it's epic: camels walk across the sand in front of us, behind them rise rock formations shaped by erosion over millions of years. The second big highlight.

I take a little souvenir home, too: at one point my knee kisses the sand. Nothing serious, just a scrape to remember it by.

From there it's almost all downhill, from just over 900 metres to the Red Sea at Aqaba, where the tour ends. Before we fly home I go snorkelling. The trip started at the Dead Sea and ends at the Red one.

Good to know

• Guided trip: I booked "Jordanien – MTB-Reise vom Toten Meer zum Roten Meer" with Hauser Exkursionen and paid for it myself. Included: a local guide, a support vehicle and luggage transport. I didn't plan the route myself, so there's no GPX here to ride it on your own.
• Bike: The trip is advertised as a mountain bike tour, and I rented my mountain bike from the tour operator. The first days are almost all tarmac, but on days 5 and 6 in Wadi Rum, with tracks, sand and rocks, the mountain bike is exactly the right bike.
• Weather: In early April we had everything from 38 degrees at the Dead Sea to hail, snow and 1 degree in the highlands. Pack a rain jacket and warm layers, even if you're heading for the desert.
• Petra: The climb to the Monastery, Ad Deir, is worth it – take enough water.