Wadi Rum Desert Preserve

 

A Bedouin guide leads camels through the desert.

This is the third episode in the series of our trip to Jordan and Italy. Find the first here, and the second, about Petra, here.

After our rather excessive second day at Petra (21,000 steps! 3,700 vertical feet!) we slept well, and were met at our hotel the next morning by our driver, Hamdan, ready to take us two hours down the road to Wadi Rum, a desert preserve.

One advantage of having a driver was his ability to call and coordinate with the folks at our destination, making our arrival seamless. We got out of Hamdan’s car, and into the truck from the camp we’d booked. (I’ve mentioned before the incredible amount of planning that Paula and her long-time friend, Sue, put into this trip. The driving, the lodging, the excursions had all been set up months before.)

Our cabin. The dome behind is larger, for families.

Pathway through the camp.

We studied the desert from our seats in the back of the truck: it was orange. Well, mostly; also yellow. And endless. Our driver, taking us to the camp, mentioned that scenes from the movie The Martian were filmed here; also Dune and numerous other desert-based films.

Wadi Rum Desert Preserve--orange and empty.

Our camp, the Wadi Rum Dream Camp, is one of many in this area, which offer varying levels of comfort. Wisely, the camps are well spaced, preserving the sense of desert vastness. At our Dream Camp we had individual huts, with en suite bathrooms (our first experience with glamping!). One whole wall was a huge window giving out on the desert: perhaps that’s the dream, the sense of being engulfed by the vastness without having to actually put up with the heat (we had AC!) and blowing sand (tightly-sealed windows!).

(Actually, the weather was extraordinary, neither hot nor cold, and certainly not windy. We had perfect desert exploration weather.)

Sue, welcoming us to the camp.

One of the Bedouin staff relaxes in the seating area. There's a large pot of tea on the fire all day long.

There is nothing, really, to do in the desert (for those of us lucky enough to be staying in a dream camp) except experience it, which is, of course, the whole point. In fact, Wadi Rum is a protected area, somewhat like a National Park in the US: nothing happens there without a permit. The hikers, the camps, the camels. The desert rides; all are tightly controlled to prevent the place from becoming overrun.

Paul, lost in the desert landscape.

In our case, much of the experience came from two long trips we took, one each day we were there, riding in the back of the truck.

Tire tracks running through the sand.

I have mixed feeling about those desert rides. Certainly, streaming through the desert in the back of a fossil-fueled pickup (a new Toyota HiLux, the model commonly used by the camps) did not fit in with my romantic notion of a vast, quiet, ethereal desert.

Most common mans of transport. But only tourists ride the camels!

Sue hangs on as we speed past tourists and their Bedouin guide.

On the other hand, we could not have walked very far! Camels were certainly available for hire, and probably horses, but frankly, we would have gotten even less far that way. We did see some hikers far from any camps, and I admire and envy them their desert experience, which no doubt was more “authentic” than ours. But I’m also pleased that we were able to see the variety of landscapes that we did.

A Bedouin tent in the desert.

Much of what we saw was unique and fantastic; some felt a bit “old hat.” Our first stop was at the “mushroom rock,” a huge bolder balanced on a tiny pedestal. It was swarming with other visitors as we drove up, people on another truck tour just like ours. Eventually they left and we took our photos, but hey, we’ve seen rocks before. We also visited some impressive rock arches, but again, we’ve been to southern Utah several times, including that US National Park called, er, Arches.

A rock arch.

More rock; another arch.

This crowd climbed on top of the arch, and insisted that each person have their photo taken there. 
(Note the Bedouin tent: you won't see that at Arches NP!)

At one point we stopped at the top of a steep dune and waited while several other trucks made the big drop. After our apprehension reached the appropriate level, it was our turn, and down we went. It was, admittedly, thrilling, although I didn’t really want it to be. (How “authentic” was THAT experience?)

A truck, ready to take the Big Drop...

That could be our truck, but it wasn't...

See, we’d come to experience the immense emptiness and solitude of the desert; bouncing along in our little pickup gave us that, while at the same time destroying that same emptiness and solitude. That was the conundrum of Wadi Rum!

 

...because this was our truck!

There was a clever end to the afternoon “sunset tour.” As the ride wore on, and the sun got lower, I began to think, yes I want to see the sunset in the desert, but really have no interest in riding back in the dark! Ah, but the tour ended at the perfect place to see the sunset: right outside our camp. Our driver encouraged us to remove our shoes and walk barefoot the brief distance to the camp, which I did. It was quite nice, and I realized I could have walked quite far (barefoot or fully shod) while watching the sunset. But none of us did; we were perfectly content to watch the skies darken from right in front of the camp. So… opportunity missed? Maybe. But we were exceptionally well satisfied with our desert experience just as it was.

 

Returning to camp at sunset. It was just March, and flowers were blooming!

The camp at night (no, those are LEDs on the hill, not fires!)

Paula got this exceptional night shot of the camp with her iPhone 14.
 That's Jupiter just below the moon!

Then the morning came when we piled into the truck with our bags, and returned to the parking lot where Hamdan awaited. We were going north, but he headed south, to clear a long mountainous ridge. We went as far as the outskirts of the city of Aqaba, at the top of the Red Sea, and then got on the highway heading north. We followed the Jordan-Israel boarder for almost four hours—desert all the way!—to the Dead Sea and our luxury resort. And, a few days later, the Amman airport and the flight to Palermo, Sicily. But we told that story in a previous blog, here…

Morning, the day we left, seen from our bed through the huge picture window..

Well, that's the end of the Jordan stories. Our next stop was in Palermo, Sicily...

Sunset in the desert, the night before we left.

10-May-2023