Dorte and Andy Travelling: Nomadic Trek in Wadi Rum, Jordan

We took the 6:20 bus from Petra to Wadi Rum, and got dropped off at Jordan Track's office at 8:30. It was a nice ride through desert, but the rocks looked slightly different.

We are only 4 people in the group: Helen (UK), us and Farahd (FuFu), our guide. He is 20 years old, and was born in Wadi Rum village. His father has two wives, and he is one of 8 children. He has a great sense of humour, and he Andy had a lot of friendly banters over the two days. FuFu would claim things like he used an American M-16 rifle to kill 1000 rabbits a year. Andy would laugh at this, and pretend to go along with the story. FuFu also threatened to leave Andy alone at night in the desert to see if he could survive. Andy threatened to leave FuFu alone in the high Canadian Artic for one hour and on it went!

Wadi Rum is a spectacular desert scenery; the mountains rise up to 800 metres from the desert floor, and the corridors of red sand just add to the dramatic scenery.

We walked part of the old caravan route between Aquba and Saudi Arabia, and saw sign posts (the first graffiti?) carved into the rock by the Thamud tribe, about 2000 years ago showing the way for the caravans.

We stopped for lunch and siesta in the shade of this big rock for a couple of hours, as it is too hot to walk in the desert at that time of day.

Up and down sand dunes we walked, through open areas where the sand was whipping us forward due to the high winds in the afternoon, so a true desert experience.

When we reached camp around 16:30 and after 18 km of walking in the sand, we were tired, but very proud of ourselves. We sleep in beds in tents perched along the mountain, and the meals were served outside around the fire pit.

It was wonderful with a hot shower provided by solar energy, and we got a free body's scrub washing off all the sand! We walked away from camp to see the sunset, and caught a glimpse of it.

The 12 other people at our camp, were all on jeep tours, and they were impressed that we had walked all the way to camp. Dinner was literally 'something we dug up', as it was cooked in a hole in the ground with burning wood at the bottom, then the food covered with a lid and sand to keep the heat in. The chicken and the veggies tasted wonderful.

We walked away from camp to see the stars, and what a sight. The Milkey Way was right above our heads, and so was thousand of stars. It was almost as if you could reach out and touch the stars, and it was so silent - it was simply magical.

After dinner, the Bedouin guides entertained us with song and music, and then it was a well deserved bed time.

Nomadic Trek Day 2

For once it was a treat going to the wash room in the middle of the night, as the moon was up, and lit up the camp and sourrounding dessert. An amazing sight.

We left the camp after breakfast around 9 am, and took off on our day hike in the dessert. It is an amazing landscape, and hard work, but interesting to experience by foot what the Bedouins have done for thousand of years.

We stopped several times for short breaks in the shade, and the temperature difference was amazing as it was 5 to 10 degrees C cooler in the shade - what a relief. The movie Lawrence of Arabia was filmed here in the early 1960s.

We had a tea break at this rock bridge, which was quite a challenge for Andy, due to his vertigo, but he made it up there.

I (Dorte) am typing this part in FuFu's grandparent's Bedouin tent in the middle of the dessert, where we had lunch, tea, and a 2 hour siesta as it is too hot to walk around in the dessert. Very nice of them to host us, and another interesting experience. It is a hard life being a Bedouin!