The Bedouin's face was burned brown by a lifetime beneath Jordan's searing desert sun. As he carefully roasted fresh coffee beans over a campfire, his features in profile appeared as proud and regal as the face on an ancient coin. Then, suddenly, he smiled to himself. Leaning conspiratorially close to a young Jordanian woman who was watching him, he whispered something mysterious in Arabic. She thrust her head back and burst into laugher.
Later, I asked her what the leathery nomad had said. 'He told me he'd been in the desert for weeks and asked if I had any spare shampoo - because he really needed to wash his hair before he visited the city!'
Welcome to the beguiling Kingdom of Jordan, where camel-riding Bedouin still follow a way of life that has hardly changed in a thousand years, yet who appreciate the luxury of a silky-soft, tangle-free mane. This is a young nation born of an ancient womb. Humans have dwelled in the fabled Jordan Valley for more than 10,000 years, yet today, most of Jordan's five million people are younger than 30.
Sadly, many travellers' knowledge of the Middle East is murky at best, with much of it based on CNN sound bites. Modern, progressive Jordan is often confused with a dozen other Arabic nations, many of them politically unstable. Even Jordan's boyish-looking ruler, 42-year-old King Abdullah II, concedes that Jordanians live in a 'tough neighbourhood', sharing their borders with Syria, Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
But Jordan is authentically a rose among the thorns. In Jordan, women not only drive cars, have careers, vote and run for political office, they're more likely to be dressed in blue jeans and T-shirts than veils. Polished English is spoken everywhere and the casual, open-hearted Jordanian personality is almost impossible to dislike. When I told a taxi driver in Amman, the kingdom's cheery, sun-splashed capital, I was late for an appointment, he quickly declared: 'Be cool! I know a short cut.' Later, 100km to the south, when I asked a Bedouin girl if her donkey had a name, she laughed, saying: 'Of course! His name is Michael Jackson ... because he's a jackass.'
Although a small country, hardly larger than Portugal, Jordan is home to three of the world's most enthralling travel attractions: the celebrated Dead Sea, the ancient city of Petra and the magnificent deserts of Wadi Rum.