The southern desert of Jordan conjours all the romanticised visions of Lawrence of Arabia's travels, the brilliantly coloured desert mountains and solitude of Wadi Rum completed by Petra.

But a sojourn around one of the most hospitable countries of the Middle East promises much more - from the hubble bubble of capital Amman to newly opened eco-camps in the Dana Nature Reserve and five-star spas on the Dead Sea.

Jordan is a small country with big sights and big-hearted people. Our guide, Mahmud, insists that Jordanian people live in harmony whatever their creed. And he tells us that to date over 250,000 archaeological sites have been recorded, dotted around dramatic landscapes.

We were there for four nights - arriving late in Amman, the capital, before heading south to Dana Nature Reserve, Petra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea. On the way to Dana we stop at Madaba, a market town littered with Byzantine mosaics. The most famous, a huge 7th century map of the Holy Land, covers the floor of St George's Church.

Mahmud points out the major historic sites on what is a lop-sided yet remarkably accurate cartographical record for its time, made out of over two million stone squares. Nearby there's more brilliant mosaics on Mount Nebo, where Moses is said to have viewed the Promised Land and spent his last days.

The Dana Nature Reserve is one of the most important of the country's many protected areas, with an abundance of flora and fauna, and some plant species found nowhere else in the world. Dana Guesthouse has traditional Jordanian styling, and balconies that hang on the edge of the mountain at over 1,500m, with a view from the mountain top to the desert floor near the Dead Sea.

We take the two-hour trek around to the Rummana Camp, remaining near the top of the valley. Here, guests stay in sealed tipi-shaped tents and can trek for hours without encountering another human being. The camp manager and guide, Salah, a young English student and Bedouin, welcomes us with lashings of sweet mint tea after dinner, and stories about his culture.

To the amusement of those present, much is lost in translation, but the tea and surroundings are intoxicating. Salah's explanation of the woman's place in his society doesn't go down well with the females present - mainly because wives are expected to bear children and do most of the work, as well as share her husband with other wives in his harem.

The evening ends with joke telling, Mahmud and Salah revealing more about the cultural divide in those few minutes than during the rest of the trip with bizarre unfunny jokes that have us in stitches ("Why did the chicken wear an egg necklace? So she could see a picture of herself when she was young").

It's a 90-minute early morning drive to Petra, where the entrance is as affecting as the monuments, tombs and temples themselves. The walk down through the Siq, a narrow gorge that at places is only a couple of metres wide, is nearly a mile long. The vertical cliffs used to be joined, now wrought apart by earthquakes and other natural forces. The bright red hues of weathered sandstone hint at the majesty ahead.

For most people, the image that typifies the Red Rose City is that of the Treasury, carved out of the same vertical cliffs as those that line the Siq. Emerging from the gorge, the massive, ornate wall is revealed gradually and is awe-inspiring even if you've seen the picture hundreds of times. This one tomb is only the beginning of the ancient city, created by the Nabateans, an Arabic tribe that took advantage of trading routes to dominate a large swathe of the Middle East long before the Romans arrived.

The Bedouins are thought to be descended from the Nabateans, and the city was inhabited by the more modern tribe until 1985, when Unesco made it a World Heritage Site. The dwellers had a village built with free electricity and housing, but a few have returned to live in caves on the periphery.