Next morning we set off on horseback.What we were wearing, we are not saying.FACTFILEGetting there: The nearest airport to Bandera is San Antonio. There are no direct flights from the UK, but Bon Voyage (0703 330332) has a fare of pounds 309 (plus pounds 21 in US taxes) on American Airlines from Gatwick via Dallas.Nearby attractions: San Antonio contains the state shrine of Texas, the Alamo, where Davy Crockett and co died trying to repel the Mexican army in 1836. You can also see the Mexican version of rodeo, charreadas, and visit the city's Institute of Texan Cultures.Further information: A comprehensive guide to all the state parks of Texas can be obtained from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, 4200 Smith School Road, Austin, Texas 78744 (0101 512 389 4800). For more details on Bandera, contact the Bandera Visitors Bureau, Box 171, Bandera, Texas 78003 (0101 210 796 3045).(Photographs omitted). So this is what the signatures on the peace treaty actually mean: a mass of barbed wire and a huddle of Portakabins parked in the desert. When Israel and Jordan talked peace in July, they opened up a new world of travel possibilities. Walking up to the prefabricated frontier post between Eilat and Aqaba, you feel like an extra in a spy movie.

But after some brisk passport-stamping and cursory luggage-checking, you are free to make the most of the Holy Land. By combining the border crossing with the bridge over the River Jordan, halfway between Jerusalem and Amman, you can do a circular tour of Israel and Jordan. A misleading sign in the Jordanian embassy in London says, 'No visa will be issued for a passport with an Israeli stamp'. This is no longer the case, but travellers will not have an entirely comfortable ride. To reach the King Hussein/Allenby crossing, you drive along the wrong side of the road since at 6.30am the line of vehicles waiting to cross is half a mile long. Eventually you queue-jump your way to a customs complex which is only slowly and reluctantly being built.

Foreigners are segregated into a waiting room where the air is thick with fly spray and thicker with flies. Once a bus-full has collected, you are ushered aboard a coach, charged 1.50 dinars ( pounds 1.50) and taken on a disjointed journey across the frontier.The King Hussein Bridge is not the majestic span across the River Jordan that you might imagine. Painted military green, it is no longer than 30 yards and looks as though it has been built from industrial-strength Meccano. It traverses something that seems no more than a creek.Across the bridge and into Israel, the tight security is stepped up a notch. Machine- guns stare you in the face, and troops concealed behind sunglasses snap their orders to the bus driver with a flick of the rifle. Tension still runs high in parts of the Middle East.But last week I realised how much the region has changed when I found myself floating towards Jill Dando. I was bobbing about in the Dead Sea, proving the theory that you really can lie back in the water and read the Independent.