Join us for a special tour of Jordan

Join us for a special tour of Jordan, featuring Marguerite van Geldermalsen as our guest guide through Bedouin Petra.

“Where are you staying” the Bedouin asked. “Why not stay with me tonight - in my cave?”
He seemed enthusiastic - and we were looking for adventure. Thus begins Marguerite van Geldermalsen’s story of how a New Zealand-born nurse came to be married to Mohammad Abdallah Othman, a Bedouin souvenir-seller from the ancient city of Petra in Jordan. It was 1978 and she and a friend were travelling through the Middle East when Marguerite met the charismatic Mohammad, who convinced her that he was the man for her. She lived with him in a two thousand-year old cave carved into the red rock of a hillside, became the resident nurse for the tribe that inhabited that historical site and learned to live like the Bedouin: cooking over fires, hauling water on donkeys and drinking sweet black tea. She learned Arabic, converted to Islam and gave birth to three children. Over the years she became as much of a curiosity as the cave-dwellers, with tourists including David Malouf and Frank McCourt encouraging her to tell this, her extraordinary story.