Sleeping under the stars in the desert of Wadi Rum
Make a mold of the Grand Canyon and invert it; add Dali-esque rock formations, pile on red and white sand dunes, paint on stripes like fudge ripple ice cream and you’ve got some of the best desert landscape in Jordan. We spent two days at a Bedouin camp and toured the desert by camel and jeep.
Upon setting off for Wadi Rum from Aqaba, we slowly began to learn just how unreliable the public transport in Jordan can be. We had been warned that buses don’t always run according to schedule as they usually wait until the bus is full until it leaves. We arrived at the Aqaba bus station a good 45 minutes before the bus to Wadi Rum was supposed to leave. After waiting over and hour and half and being politely approached by over a dozen taxi drivers who thought we were crazy in our determination to take the bus, we finally gave in, bargained, and took a cab to Wadi Rum.
We were picked up on the side of the road by a Bedouin guide and then jumped onto camels which took us into the desert. There’s nothing like a slow camel ride into the desert under the heavy heat of the sun, between rock formations that tower over you like sky scrapers, with no noise other than the sound of rustling sand an occasional camel snort that will remind you how peaceful things can be and just how small you are in the bigger world. We slowly made our way thru the desert and saw giant siqs (fissures in the rock formed by techtonic forces), canyons, underground springs, huge sand dunes and many rock inscriptions dating back over thousands of years olds. The second day we toured the desert in the back of a 4×4 and visited some incredible rock bridges and more canyons and inscriptions. We met a great couple from Catelonia in Wadi Rum with whom we did both our tours and had many great laughs with and who got us extremely excited about Spain later this summer as they invited us to visit them and take us out for some rabbit paela, the local specialty. We also met a neat French couple who just started their year-long travels around the world.
After touring the desert each day, we arrived back at the Bedouin camp where we stayed overnight. There would be hot tea waiting for us and an AWESOME dinner of Bedouin food (usually some sort of chicken and rice combo), which was made using the traditional method of cooking the food in a deep sand pit layered with coals – kind of like a good ole new england clam bake, just in the desert. On occasion, one of the Bedouin’s played the lute for us as well. The nights were a welcome change from the heat if the daytime sun and from the kamikaze flies (that are scared of NOTHING and dive bomb you whenever they get a chance) that plagued us during the day. Instead of staying in the tents, we dragged our mattresses out into the desert and slept under the stars…something the both of us haven’t done in a long time. I have to say that I have never seen so many stars in the sky nor ever seen the Big Dipper so clearly than I did waking up in the middle of the night, opening my eyes and having the darn thing smack-dab right over my head.
After two unbelieveable days in the desert, we planned to head up to Petra. Lucky for us, once again we arrived at the bus stop in Wadi Rum, over an hour early for the bus to Petra, which never came – another lesson in the reliability of public transport in Jordan. Stay tuned for more adventures in Jordan.
For more pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanlovesphotos/sets/72057594119199743/
Over and out,
-Shan
Tags: Jordan, Middle East, Travel, Wadi Rum
Shan
May 6th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
Sleeping under the stars in the desert? how about the snakes and tarantulas? Have fun and more adventures.
big kiss, Mom