Government Rest House Wadi Rum

... hiking, or some sort of combination out to one of the Bedouin camps, where you watch the desert sunset, then spend the night in traditional tents, eating traditional tribal food, and getting up at traditional sunrise.

LSS (long story short), I took the 6 hour jeep ride with two women from New York (Wendy and Helen) and we enjoyed riding around, hiking to the springs, climbing the sand dunes, translating the rock inscriptions, etc. We hit the camp for sunset, had a ...

... a small applause as the sun sank behind the distant horizon.

As soon as the sun set the temperature dropped significantly and so we all rugged up in thermals and socks and made our way into the main big Bedouin tent. The tents are all hand made out of goat fur by the Bedouin women and they take about a year to weave. They are usually given to a male child when they marry. The tent at our camp was massive and had a big fire at one end. The Bedouin people then made us ...

... tents were lined up one next to the other and we had rough cots to sleep on. Pretty good for camping. They put out a nice buffet spread for us which we enjoyed since it was really late for lunch (3pm after the morning in Aquaba and the drive), but little did we know this was the first of seven consecutive buffet lunch and dinners.

We had a short time to rest before getting into our two 4x4 trucks for our sunset drive around ...

... hour safari jeep ride tour around Wadi Rum, dinner and breakfast, traditional Bedouin music by a very cool old Bedouin man, a tent to sleep in and if you are lucky the owner Mohammad might share a Argileh (aka Shisha aka Hookah) with you by the camp fire and under the stars. I think in Arabic you say Bedu instead of Bedouin. It was an amazing experience. The jeep ...

... our way back, then they disappeared again.) He's spent his whole life in this area, having only been to the capital Amman now and then briefly. He is missing most of his top front teeth and smokes frequently. He told us about the natural features we saw. We told him a little something about where we were from. Oh, and no, we're not married... And then we headed back to the tent in the distance, where we had lunch and finally moved on, having ...

Our trip to Wadi Rum was an optional extension which was terribly distant and also expensive.
However, the scenery was beautiful as it took us to a Jordanian desert with wonderful cliffs and red dune deserts. This area was also where part of the movie Lawrence of Arabia was filmed, George's favorite all time movie!

Had a falafel sandwich for breakfast from Dream Restaurant in Madaba. It was alright. Came to Wadi Rum after 3.5 hours in Diana's car. Drank tea with some of Diana's friends who are ex-pats at separate organizations. Walked in the canyons and watched the sunset in the middle of the dessert. Staying at a Bedouin camp. The Bedouins built fire in one of the huge tents that can house up to 20 ...

... la Syrie, et surtout l'Iran, fut trop forte pour m'engager. Nous parvînmes (ouch) à trouver un compromis : enfilant le djellabah (que j'avais quitté depuis Louxor), je passai effectivement du côté de l'organisation afin de payer un chouilla moins cher et d'éviter les inévitables tours en jeep et danse du ventre. Bon. L'après midi, du coup, fut superbe : préparation du camp ...

... walls of the canyon was one of the more beautiful sites we've been to so far on the trip. Since all these activities involved water in some way, I didn't get any pictures, but I'm not sure that the pictures would do it any justice. The next day we headed to Petra, which we had to do early in the morning to get in as much time as possible before the sun became a ...

... immensity of the mountains produced a feeling of awe and we drove beneath them and through their shadows. As we contemplated the almost unearthly landscapes, the discussion in our truck turned from Lawrence of Arabia to the Sci-Fi book Dune by Frank Herbert. I didn't bring it up, but it was a favorite of mine when in High School, and I wondered if the inspiration for the book wasn't Wadi Rum. Our first stop was at a place where ancient carvings were ...