Travelogue Jordan 2011
Wadi Rum
Wadi Rum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_Rum) is one of the most beautiful deserts of the world. The sand is interrupted by countless rocks and mountains, some of them with bizarre shapes. At least in spring, when we visited the Wadi Rum, the desert was full of live. The total ground was covered by little plants, which were not only very nice to watch but also gave stability to the sand and made it very comfortable to walk.
By the way: most of the time we think of deserts we think of high temperatures (at least during daytime). But that was not the case when we were in Wadi Rum, it was pretty cold and I do not know what I would have done without my Arabian head scarf.
Our first scheduled “dessert event” is a sunset. Then we got a wonderful dinner and as a surprise a friend of Saleh came and played and sang Arabian music for us.
The night sky in the dessert is as spectacular as they always say. For us, living in humid and densely populated regions, it is incredible how many stars there are. At the horizon we could see the light of cities far away, some of them in neighboring countries.
After breakfast the next morning we left for a one day jeep tour through the desert. Every now and then Saleh lets us get of the car and walk a bit, he picks us up at another place. For lunch Saleh (himself he said) cooked a very tasty dish in the morning and now heats it over a small fire. I would never have believed that it is so easy to cook on an open fire. It takes only minutes till food and tea are ready.
When the tour ends after seven hours we are so tired that we don’t want to go to watch another sunset. Anyway, it is a bit cloudy this day.
During the second evening we can’t enjoy the starry night sky because it is clouded. In the night we hear rain hitting the roof of our tent.
In the next morning it is really cold. During our camel ride back to Saleh’s house in village Rum it rains again. The ride is an experience but not really a pleasant one. Apart from the cold the saddle is quite uncomfortable, I am not sure if it was a real riding saddle. So if you plan to do camel tours, especially longer ones, make sure what kind of a saddle you get and if you feel comfortable on the animal. I definitely would not have stood a whole day on like this and enjoyed the jeep tour much more.
Apart from this cold ending our trip to Wadi Rum could not have been better. Therefore a big recommendation for the offer of Saleh and his family. If you want to contact him you can find more information about his camp at https://wadirumtours.com/.
We decided not to continue further south to the Red Sea because the weather was not fine enough for swimming or snorkeling, because it was the Jordan weekend (Friday/Saturday) when it is too full there and finally because we anyway had too many things to see given our trip of two weeks only. So we turned back north again, in rain and fog.
