After the beautiful sensory overload experience that is Petra, we, again, hired a taxi to take our group (now down to 3 – one headed back to Cairo) to Wadi Rum. The trip was slightly more comfortable, rather accelerated but generally uneventful.
We arrived in Wadi Rum and found Zadane’s house, where we met up with an American living in Kuwait who would be joining us for the day and at the camp. We had a great day driving around in the Wadi with Zadane, seeing the “Lawrence of Arabia” sites, the rock carvings, the natural arches and the open beauty of the Wadi.
The camp was well situated to see the majesty of a desert sunset, and keep the evening wind from chilling your bones. Dinner was cooked in a pit in the sand – chicken and veggies, it was DELICIOUS! We lounged about in the common tent, listening to Bedouin music and socializing with others staying at the camp.
We quickly found out that we were about the only people who would be remaining in the camp the next day. Most of the others were heading TO Petra the following morning.
The night was cold and clear, and the stars were as rich and deep in the sky as one could imagine. Even before the moonrise, there was enough starlight to see clearly across the sand.
We slept hard and rose to watch the sunrise. The colors of sunrise and sunset in the Wadi/desert are indescribable. Even the pictures don’t really do it justice. The other profound sensory realization was the silence. It is a silence that you can almost FEEL. For me it was reminiscent of being underwater. Like water, however, sound travels very well in the desert. The sound of the 4X4’s carried for (apparent) miles, so in the morning it sounded like there was a battalion of trucks about to run our tents over!
We spend the majority of our second day on camels. YUP – we are in the Middle East, we had to ride camels sometime, this seemed like a good time to try. Camels are NOT that easy, or comfortable to ride. Jack had an *issue* with his camel while mounting it (HEE HEE, I said “mounting”). This set a bad tone for much of the rest of the ride. Happily, he and the camel came to an uneasy agreement about midday. There were no more *issues*.
We lumbered along on our guided beasts (Not what we had expected – we figured we’d be riding and following a guide, not being led about by young camel-boys on foot) looking at the scenery and trying to find a comfortable position. I think you have to start riding these things about the time you learn to walk to find them easy or pleasant to ride!
The rest of the day was spend in quiet relaxation at the camp. Scrambling on the rocks, taking pictures, daydreaming. A new batch of people descended on the camp just before dinner. We were the ones heading out the next morning, so we socialized for a while and then went to bed. Another wonderful night’s rest – even on foam mats on the sand. I think the fresh air and great outdoors had a lot to do with it.
The pics from the Wadi Rum section of the trip can be found HERE.
From Rum, we headed to Aqaba and then back to Amman for some day tripping to the Dead Sea and Jerash.