Wadi Rum

We awoke early in the morning and checked out. That incident is better left unsaid otherwise I could post a 10,000 word tirade on what an asshole the person at the hotel was.

We were lucky to catch our bus and took us to Wadi Rum, a 3-hour drive from Petra where our tour guide Eid, named for the day after Ramadan, because he was apparently born that day, greeted us. Lucky for him, he got to eat straight away.

Eid was great, very polite and happy to show us around the small village of Wadi Rum. We got some supplies before heading out into the desert.

Wadi Rum is a National Park occupied by the Bedouin, nomadic people who live in the desert, herding goats, camels, sheep and living day by day in their tents made of goatskin.

We entered the desert and it pretty much acted as a desert does. It has lots of sand, it’s a little windy, it’s very hot and there were lots of shrubs. Oh and the mountains. They were pretty big.

Basically it looked like the background of every Road Runner cartoon ever made.

Just imagine this repeating itself over and over. Yep, that's the desert. 

We got to meet Eid’s uncle, who lives near a natural spring with the freshest water in Jordan (not that we got to taste any). The spring is located up in the mountain. And met his family at his camp where we stayed the night.

His family consisted of his mother, his sister and one wife. The other wife lives in the village (I think). We had lunch there as well, eating as the Bedouin do.

Our lunch consisted of pita bread with different pastes and salads. Quite nice.

Afterwards we traversed the desert visiting various places, like the small bridge (a small rocky mountain with a small bridge), the big bridge (like the small bridge but with a bigger bridge) and the house of T.E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia.

It was at his house the truck broke down, the irony was amusing, and we waited about an hour while Eid walked to his cousins’ house nearby…how nearby is relative in the desert but he disappeared from sight.

We returned to the camp as the sunset and had dinner, a chicken and rice dish that was served in a big bowl and we got to eat with our hands. Traditional indeed.

Location. Location. Location.

The best part of it all was sleeping under the stars. If you’ve never camped, or left the city at night, you cannot comprehend how awesome the sky is, littered with stars. It was easily the highlight of the day.

And the biggest shock was, despite sleeping on a mat on the sand, I had an amazing sleep (minus the wolf howls…boy did they echo around the mountains.)

Some very old indigenous artwork...around 2000 years old.