The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) has transformed an old British military field hospital in Azraq into an eco-lodge.

Located in the heart of the eastern desert near the village of South Azraq, the eco-lodge officially opened last week. The USAID-funded project, which is managed by the RSCN’s business arm, Wild Jordan, employs local residents, seeking to develop the local community and help preserve its natural sites.

The lodge hires staff from the local communities and purchases all of its supplies from the nearby villages. The kitchen is run by a local Chechen family and the restaurant offers a traditional and unique Chechen menu.

The Azraq area has a rich cultural history due to its strategic location and water resources. In ancient times it was used as a station for pilgrims traveling to Mecca and Medina, as well as a military site for many armies.

The 16-room guest house features a colonial-style reception and its walls are adorned with black- and white-framed photos dating back to the late 1800s, which were taken by a British photographer who lived with the Bedouins.

The lodge, originally built in 1940, offers its guests a trip into the past with a room dedicated for narrating stories of the eastern desert and Azraq residents. Guests can also watch a documentary that was filmed in the 1970s by a British expedition that was tasked with exploring Azraq to study transforming it into a national park.

The lodge overlooks a vast mud flat known as Qaal Azraq and is surrounded by rocks and green cactus giving it an authentic desert atmosphere. Azraq, which means blue in Arabic, also contains several pools, and a seasonally flooded marshland.

A variety of birds flock to the Azraq Wetland Reserve each year, stopping for a short rest along their migration routes, staying for the winter, or breeding within the protected areas of the wetland, according to the RSCN. Azraq, which is approximately 103km away from Amman, used to attract up to half a million migrating birds at any one time before water pumping began in the 1980s.

By 1993, however, the extraction of water was so great that no surface water remained and its ecological value was virtually destroyed. With international support, a rescue effort started in 1994 and a significant portion of the wetland has been restored, according to the RSCN.

 Many of the birds, for which the oasis was renowned, are coming back and special boardwalks and bird hides have been constructed to enable visitors to see and enjoy them.

The reserve also organizes several tours and hiking trails to desert castles, extinct volcanoes and the black basalt landscape of the Hammada.