twenty ten chelle & ben: Jordan Day 6-7: Wadi Rum

We leave Petra at about 1:30pm after spending all morning ( since 6:00am) taking our second trek to the high place of sacrifice within the Gorges of Petra. From hear we head to the National park of Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is an amazing conglomerate of steep and massive mountains separated through valleys of ancient sand.

As we came upon the Bedouin village which lies at the opening of the national park, we were greeted by one of our drivers who helped us in to an old land cruiser. It seems the Toyota land cruiser is the vehicle of choice out here – specifically the FJ40 or anything pre 1980! They are beat up, seats cracking, most movable parts missing or replaced with something more agricultural, but there is something quite familiar about them and the whole place has a feeling of “the outback” in Australia.

We take this 4WD for a 3 hour tour visiting various sites amongst this stunning landscape before arriving at our camp for the night. Unlike the White dessert this trip is not so intimate and we meet with 15 odd other people who will be sharing the site with us for the night. There are about 6 French, and two American families. The first US family of 3 actually live in Zurich and the Wife is South American so at dinner they speak to us in English, whilst they talk amongst themselves in Spanish, and their son speaks fluent German! The second family of 4 are travelling for 6 months and are moving on to Turkey next – so maybe we will see them again. We had minimal interaction with the French but they were all very friendly

After a delish and simple dinner of chicken, rice bread and hummus, we were quick to our tents and sleep as it had been a massive day.

The camp was quite civilized and had a toilet block nearby, a row of double tents and a main eating tent. We did pass some more elaborate setups on our way out though, where the tents were more like hotel room sizes.

On our last morning in Jordan we spent some more time exploring the Wadi Rum area by 4WD. We visited Lawrence of Arabia’s house, a huge natural bridge, a sand dune and some Nabataean writings. The only minor drawback that I could find to Wadi Rum is the lack of a shower. As we now take the 3 hour drive to Amman to catch our flight to Istanbul I really wish I had the opportunity to wash out the handful of sand in my underpants.

With a population of approx 7 million (mostly Sunni Muslim) Jordan is a small and wonderful part of the world. Most of my knowledge of Jordan revolves around past conflicts, but there is nothing that points to this anymore and the people are genuinely friendly and welcoming. The highlight is definitely Petra, but the Dead Sea is also amazing and Wadi Rum shouldn’t be missed. Michelle and I only regret not having more time for hiking Wadi Mujib. This has been an amazing and exciting journey and has enticed us to visit surrounding countries such as Israel, Syria and Lebanon in the future.