Wadi Rum - Offroad adventure!
Talk about fun! Cathy and I left Aqaba in the morning by taxi and were driven through the hills of southern Jordan into the desert known as Wadi Rum. Wadi means desert, what the Rum alludes to I can only guess. Anyway, our destination was the Wadi Rum village, where we would be meeting up with our bedouin guides for an all day excursion through the desert. Now, the bedouin are known as nomads, but they are very up on technology, having cell phones, tv's, computers, etc. They are also very learned, and many know multiple languages so that they can communicate with passers-by.
We arrived at the camp and met up with Mohammad, who had arranged our journey into the desert. He sat us (along with 6 others who would also be doing the offroading) down with some bedouin tea and went over the plan for the adventure.
Before we headed into the desert, we stopped at what was probably the only shop in town to buy some lunch (pita bread, hard boiled eggs, that kind of thing) and some water. After all, we were heading out into the desert! For whatever reason, I had pants on when we were setting out, but it turned out not to be too hot in the desert the entire day.
White hills, red hills, black hills, red sand, white sand, black sand...it was beautiful out in the desert! The neatest thing of all was that it was completely quiet. There were no roads, no footprints, no people...just the 8 of us and our 2 guides the entire day. Every once in a while you would see a vehicle in the distance, but that was the extent of our interaction with others the whole day. Talk about a chance to get away! I fell in love with Wadi Rum.
After a few hours of offroading, getting stuck, sightseeing, rock climbing, chatting, laughing, and having a great time, we came to a shady spot in the desert. There, we took a break and had the lunch we had purchased earlier. After a bit of relaxing, we packed up and headed back out into the desert. After a short time, we had to stop due to a sandstorm that came raging through. It wasn't bad, but it made it impossible to see so we just had to wait it out. After a few more hours of the events listed above (I really wish I could explain in here how awesome this experience was...hopefully the pictures do it some justice), we arrived at the camp where we would eat, watch the sunset, and sleep.
Dinner came first, and there was tons of food! It was served semi-buffet style, with several dishes placed inside a hut. There was pita and hummus, chicken and rice, veggies, lots of things to dip food in, more tea...it was great! After dinner we all went outside and watched the sun set over the hills. The bedouins then played some music for us on their traditional instruments, and I took the opportunity to check out the stars with no light pollution. After the festivities were over, we settled into our tents and went to sleep.
The next morning, we woke up early and the bedouin served us breakfast. After we had finished the meal, we were driven back to the village where we caught a taxi up to Wadi Musa and the ancient city of Petra.
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