Oct 14 – Wadi Rum

Today we met our guide and driver who will be with us through the rest of our visit to Jordan.  We ditched most of the Aqaba touring as we have seen most of it during our two days here.  Instead, we asked to be taken as close to the Saudi Arabia border as we could.  The drive took us along the Red Sea, past where we went cruising the day before.

He was able to point out the location of the Israel/Egypt border across the sea.  It was between two hotels in the distance.

We saw a gigantic grain silo complex where grain imported to Jordan is stored for distribution. 

There was also a huge parking lot filled with new cars and truck just offloaded from the container ships. 

He also noted that there are hotels right on the border where Saudi’s come to Jordan in order to drink.  Alcohol is forbidden in Saudi Arabia. We saw the Saudi Border crossing sign and the Jordan side of the border. 

Some of the sights along the drive. 

Then we had a bit of touring in Aqaba where we saw the remains of a late Roman Church.  The church is so old that the bricks are made of mud. 

We had lunch in Aqaba before heading off on our drive to Wadi Rum.  Besides the scenery…

we saw a few camels along the way.

We also saw a “train robbery”.  The train was an early 20^th century train dating from around the time of Lawrence of Arabia.  They stage a robbery with Bedouins on horseback and camelback.  Our timing was lucky but most of the action took place on the other side of the train so we missed most of it.  But lots of fun.

Our first stop in Wadi Rum Protected Area was to see the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. 

Then we were off to our hotel.  We are staying in a bubble hotel.  We saw a number of these bubble villages as we drove through the desert.

After unloading and taking a quick break we loaded onto our four-wheel drive for a trip through Wadi Rum.  This desolate, barren desert is breathtakingly beautiful.  The mountains are sandstone…leaving massive amounts of sand to navigate.  It is a protected area and also home of Bedouins.  In fact, our driver, Abdullah, (with his shiny Toyota pickup with some of the white, new-car, protective film still attached) was a Bedouin. 

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Video of a cliff
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The other name for the area, Valley of the Moon, is very appropriate.  The 1962 film, Lawrence of Arabia, was filmed here, launching tourism and the film industry for the area.  The 2015 film, The Martian, staring Matt Damon was filmed here.  These photos show one of the primary filming sites.  Other movie filmed here were Dune (2021) Red Planet, Prometheus, several Star Wars desert scenes, and many others.

In fact, there was a truck nearby pulling a screen behind it to “dress” the sand for filming.  Unfortunately, our guide didn’t know what film was in the works. 

There were a number of other tours going on.  The groups had a screeching time when the trucks blazed down the sandy side of the mountain.  We didn’t screech…but still got to make the rapid trip down.

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Video of blazing down the mountain
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Some of the rocks looked like melting chocolate or melting ice cream sundaes…yummy.

And there was a "mushroom" that we stopped to see.

And we stopped to look at some petroglyphs. 

We also visited a couple of arches that extended out over the cliff sides.  Paul and Tara took the hike up.  

While at the top they also took photos of their shadows on the ground below.

There were a lot of camels in the area available to ride.  

Saw these three guys on camels racing at a pretty good clip. 

Near the end of the tour the driver pulled over and we all piled out to enjoy the sunset.  He went scrounging for firewood from desert shrubs and made a fire.  He placed a beat up kettle on it to heat water for tea and also a griddle (sort of looked like a pizza pan). 

While everything was heating, he picked some pieces off of a nearby plant, crushed them between two stones, added a bit of water and, voila, we had very sudsy soap to clean our hands. 

He then proceeded to make Bedouin Bread.  After it was kneaded, he pressed all of the dough out on the hot griddle and then held it near the fire to lightly dry/toast the top.  All pretty regular so far. 

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Video of toasting the dough
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However, he then proceeded to burry the griddle, bread and all, into the ashes…covering the bread very thoroughly with the ashes.  Right on top of the bread.  Perhaps the toasting was to keep the ashes from embedding into the bread.

After baking for 8 or so minutes he pulled it out of the ashes, shook off the worst and then proceeded to beat the top of the bread thoroughly with a stick to get off all of the ash.

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Video of beating the bread with a stick
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We tried the bread…no sand, no ash and very tasty.  Would have been great with butter.  The tea was good too. 

While the sun was setting...

we enjoyed watching some camels wander by.  The camels made a modest sunset rather special. 

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More Wadi Rum
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We drove back to the camp in the dark, but our guide knew the way even though we were not on roads. 

Just before dinner the staff dug up the meat for dinner.  The Hawaiian’s roast their luau pigs underground in a imu.  We don’t know what they called this “oven” for roasting their meats here in Jordan, but it was pretty impressive…all three layers.  Looked like it was chicken, potatoes and maybe some other vegetables.  The dinner buffet, complete with the roasted chicken, was very good. 

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Pulling up the "oven"
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Then it was off to our bubbles for a night of glamping under the stars.