Days 7-8: Wadi Rum

We woke up and packed our bags for a night in a Bedouin tent in the desert. Mohammed picked us up at 2 and we started out on the 2 hour ride into Wadi Rum.

The Wadi Rum desert is gorgeous. The sand is soft and fine and the mountains are all tall and distinctly shaped with faces that look like melting wax. We arrived at our camp site and 4 and sat drinking tea (supposedly hot tea is the best cure for thirst in the hot desert) until our 4 x 4 tour of the desert at 5:30.

Our 4x4 tour was GREAT. We rode in the back of a pickup truck on makeshift benches while a nice, quiet and gentle Bedouin man drove us through the desert. He was a shepherd to a pack of camels and his camels all wandered over to the truck when we drove past. He must be kind to those camels!
Paul in the back of the 4x4.

Me in the back of the 4x4.
Camels following our Bedouin driver behind the truck.

Mohammed accompanied us and explained the sites in English. We stopped at an otherwise non-distinct rock face and saw Nabatean carvings of camels in the rocks. Mohammed explained that the Nabateans tried to settle in Wadi Rum before discovering that the rocks in Wadi Rum were granite beneath the sandstone facade and unsuitable for tomb carving.

Mohammed had bought another melon along the side of the road on the way into the desert and we stopped at a beautiful secluded spot on top of a peak overlooking the desert to crack open the melon and eat it. It was perfect. Then we drove to Lawrence of Arabia canyon and Paul and I raced to the top of a tall steep sand dune. I won’t say who won the race, but I will admit that it was exhausting (I think for both of us). I was panting so hard at the top, all I could do was collapse into a heap. Mohammed laughed at us from the bottom of the dune. The run down the hill was like flying, especially compared to the way up. Last stop was a perfect location to watch the sunset. It was beautiful.
View of the truck from our spot.
Another view from our spot.
Mohammed cutting open the melon.
Us with our Bedouin driver.
Running up the steep sand dune.
Collapsed in a heap at the top of the dune.
Beautiful sunset.

We returned to the camp and relaxed for an hour until dinner. The camp was not completely roughing it. There was a row of flush toilets and showers and our tent even had a bed! Dinner was good – kebabs on the grill and various sides – and afterwards we did a little belly dancing. Paul and I thought it was going to be a belly dancing show, Aladdin style, but it turns out belly dancing in Jordan is everyone holding hands and dancing around in a circle and we had to participate in the fun. After we got the circle going, one of the men at the camp pulled me into the center of the circle for a little more elaborate dancing. I laughed uncomfortably and stumbled over my feet, but it was fun, and eventually all the women took a turn in the spotlight with the slightly creepy man.
The camp lit up at night.
Paul in the camp.

After dinner, Paul and I decided to go for a walk in the desert. Unfortunately Mohammed terrified me with his talk of rabid hyenas waiting to eat us, and within the first 15 minutes of walking outside the camp we saw two huge scarab beatles (that loved chasing people with flashlights!), so the walk was pretty short. Although short, it was a good walk – quiet and pretty and peaceful in the desert.
YIKES!!

When the sun first went down, the moon was so bright we hardly saw the stars in the sky. When we woke up at 4:55am for our sunrise camel ride, the moon was gone and the sky was black and the stars were glowing. Within half an hour, it was too light for stars. I thought it was amazing to see the way the sky changes throughout the night.

Our sunrise camel ride was awesome. Our Bedouin guide hardly spoke a word of English, but he was great (and even tried to teach us Arabic!). He was from Sudan and planned to spend 1 year in Jordan before returning to his family in Sudan. He loved to take our pictures (which we obviously loved) and put his head covering on our heads to dress us up as Bedouins. At the end of our tour, he gave us his email address and asked us to send pictures for his kids in Sudan to see. Neither Paul nor I nor Mohammed could figure out how he had access to email in the mountains, but we will definitely pass along the pictures.
Starting out at dark.
Me with our Sudanese guide.
Paul makes a good Bedouin!
The shadows of our camels in the desert.
Beautiful sunrise.

There was a little puppy in the camp that I loved, despite his habit of nawing on hands and ankles and shoelaces. The puppy followed Paul and me out of the camp to where the camels were waiting in the morning, and when our Bedouin camel guide saw that I loved the puppy, he brought the puppy along for the ride on the side of his saddle. The poor puppy fell off the tall camels on the way to the sunrise point, but he picked himself up and followed us all the way on foot. He then nawed on Paul and me the entire time we were trying to take in the sunrise... The Bedouin guide gave the puppy his own camel for the ride back, but Paul, from on top of his own camel, grabbed the scared puppy and held him for the return ride. (Paul was closest in line to the puppy in our little caravan – it was our Bedouin guide, then me, then Paul, then the puppy – although the caravan line got a little crazy when halfway back to camp Paul’s camel made his move to take second in line from my camel). Between the camels, the puppy, and the beautiful sunrise in the desert, I was in heaven.
Paul's "desert monster."
Puppy on a camel!

After breakfast, we left the desert and headed to our last stop in Jordan, Aqaba.