Wadi Rum

January 3, 2009: Wadi Rum, Jordan

(notes from my journal)

When we got to our room, we took our cold/cough medications, a shower and went to sleep. I woke up at 2 AM and tried to sleep until 5 AM with no luck. At 5 AM, we both were up for good. Since dawn had just started to break, I went up to the terrace of the hotel to get some early morning shots of Petra.

View of Petra from our hotel rooftop

We were glad we took a shower the previous night. There was absolutely no water in the hotel and all the guests, including us, had to brush our teeth with bottled drinking water. Since we were up very early, we decided to walk around Wadi Musa for a while. It’s a lot of fun to watch a city wake up and slowly come to life – shopkeepers opening their stores, bakers putting out freshly baked goods, porters carrying goods around, street vendors setting up their wares, kids going to school, office goers… We stopped by a bakery and got some biscuits and bread to munch on.

The plan for the day was to do the following:

• Hire a taxi to take us from Wadi Musa to Wadi Rum
• Hire a 4×4 tour in Wadi Rum for 4 hours
• Have the taxi drop us off at the Aqaba-Arava border crossing between Jordan and Israel
• Cross over to Israel and head to Eilat, Israel

Our taxi driver, Abu Saleem, was prompt and ready to depart at 8:30 AM. We were lucky to find a traveling companion, Anna, from Poland, who also wanted to take the same route and we split the costs.

The drive to Wadi Rum was through the desert and fairy lackluster but what it lacked in scenery we made up in conversation. Anna had traveled quite a bit and told us about her experiences to places like Mongolia and Burma (high on my list of places to go!). After Heena and Anna fell asleep, I chatted with Abu Saleem, a Palestinian who lives in Jordan, about his life in Jordan and his time in Kuwait, where he had lived for 18 years before he returned to Jordan. He came across as a level headed man and with a great work ethic – not the kind who want to make just a quick buck. He also drove slowly – Safety first, he repeated.

We arrived at Wadi Rum at 10:30 AM. After the initial formalities we got into an ancient 4×4 Land Cruiser. Our guide was Aouda, a bedouin who lived in the Wadi Rum village. This village was created by the King to settle the nomadic bedouins. Most of them now make a living by driving tourists around the sand dunes, taking them on camel rides and setting up night excursions to the desert.

We visited the following locations:

• Spring of Lawrence: T.E Lawrence wrote about this spot in his book: The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
• Sand dune: It looked very easy to climb up. Really how hard can it be? Yeah? It was fairly arduous! All the sand got in to our shoes (hiking boots – heavier than normal) harder. The wind was billowing in our face and we was getting over a nasty viral infection. The sand grains got in to our mouth, eyes, nose and ears and got irritating fairly quickly.
• Petroglyphs: A crevice with petroglyphs.
• Small arch: We climbed up the rocks to get close to this arch. The views from the arch were awesome. However, the wind was blowing pretty hard and we could only spend a few minutes at the top.
• Tea in the desert: While we clambered on to the small arch, Aouda made a small fire from the dry bushes and heated up some mint tea. We sat in the shade, enjoying the beauty of the place and sipping some hot tea.
• Big Arch: We did not go up since the climb is very very steep and if you miss, you break a leg. We both were feeling quite weak from the illness and did not want to do anything but enjoy the beauty. Anna climbed up and she thought it was OK.

View from the top of the sand dune

On the drive back I chatted with Aouda about his life as a Bedouin. He said that he loved the simple life. Work a few hours everyday, go home and relax. He asked me how many wives I had. I said one and she’s right here. He said I do not have a strong heart since I have only one wife. I said I have the strongest heart since it is only for my wife. He could not get it. I guess we both approached this topic from a very different mindset. We switched over to chatting about computers and he told me how he has learned to install Windows and fix minor computer issues for the whole village – impressive! He is also teaching his son whatever he learns. I encouraged him to push his son further and send him to University to study.

After 30 minutes of driving we were back at the Wadi Rum parking lot. We gave Aouda a tip of 6 JD for three people. We thought it was quite fair since its US $10 and 6JD goes a long way in Jordan. Aouda, for all his smiles and chatter, took the money, counted it and walked away. No, thank you, see you again etc. Bummer. We paid almost 80 JD for the Wadi Rum tour of four hours (for three people). I guess from now on we’re only going to tip if the service is exceptional. Why pay more to someone who is just doing their job and has no appreciation of your tip? I understand that the Bedouins are poor and every single dinar means a lot to them, but his attitude and unwillingness to even smile was a huge letdown – what happened to all that famed Bedouin hospitality?

The Wadi Rum tourist center has a restaurant with a lunch buffet for 12 JD (or 14 JD, I forget). The food was mostly meat and whatever vegetarian food was there did not look appetizing. We decided to skip lunch and just waited in the car for Abu Saleem to finish his lunch. We then headed towards Israel!

They say that the highlight of Wadi Rum is the night spent in the desert. However, due to time restrictions and the bitter cold, we decided to skip this nightly desert excursion. But then, there’s always something for the next time…