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| I really can't believe I took this photo! Just a few weeks ago I was here, in Wadi Rum. |
I said goodbye to all the great people at the Arab Dive Village and ordered a taxi. Within a couple of hours I was in Wadi Rum. The taxi driver had pretty poor English but I didn't care I was just enjoying travelling in a car for a change and being able to stop off for coffee and photos whenever I wanted to.
We arrived at the entrance to Wadi Rum desert early afternoon and I was greeted by my rather slimy guide Fiasel. I made it pretty obvious that I was old enough to be his Mother and also that I was 'married' with two teenage sons and he seemed to believe it.
Now, Wadi Rum was beautiful and even more so because there were dark, atmospheric clouds and very few tourists. We drove around , just the two of us for a few hours and because I didn't linger in one place too much or want to go off for 'romantic' walks with him we managed to visit quite a few places.
People have since asked me if I was ever scared about being in a desert alone with a young Bedouin. To be honest, call me naive, but I wasn't. I knew he was working for a legitimate company and I really think he was just trying it on. Once I had told him that I was NOT going to spend the afternoon/evening/night in his cave he just seemed to forget that he'd ever asked me to! Infact things changed direction and I felt perfectly OK once I had asked him to teach me a game of which the board was chiselled out on a rock. We needed a few stones but he taught me the basics...of course he beat me.
Here are a few far more spectacular photos!
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| Love it! |
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| The chicken and the egg rock. |
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| Me! |
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| The cave. With more tourists around this would have been a fine place to hang out! |
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Rain in the desert is a rare joy to witness! Rain in the distance.   Nabatean hyrogliphs...the people who inhabited Petra from about 300 BC. they spoke an ancient form of Arabic.  Here is some 'ancient' art from the Nabateans too. But to be honest I'm not sure if my guide was having a laugh when he pointed these out. Yeah, really?! I'll have to investigate further!
Early evening we ended up at the tent where I was going to spend the night. There were luckily a few independent tourists there and I felt pretty relieved.
It was set up really well and the main tent was more like a hotel. We had a great meal with chicken a cooked in a clay pot under the ground and a buffet salad. Here are more pictures!
   Muhammed pulling out our dinner.    My bed 
My evening in the desert was great. Was lovely to chat to the Brazilian couple who were travelling the world and were the only two people I have every met who have managed to get both Israeli and Iranian stamps in their passports! They had just come from Iran and were highly positive about the country. My desire to go there has definitely not decreased (Sorry!)
Mark from Newcastle was great too. He was one of those lucky people I meet on my trips...another word for them is travel angels!....Why, you ask?!!! Well Mark for some unfathomable reason had 2 SLEEPING bags with him and kindly offered one to me. Thank God. Because that night I was bloody freezing, freaked and spooked and the only thing that kept me calm was the sleeping bag right over my head. More about that later!
Mark also had BINOCULARS so we were able to see the stars in a clarity I could hardly believe. They were amazing and the Milky Way was so clear along with the zillion-billion other terrestrial bodies. It was totally breathtaking but my camera was just not up to the job of taking any decent photos. I have never seen stars like I did that night. We were so lucky that the clouds had vanished completely to give us such a clear view.
About 10pm I stumbled off to my tent. Now I had had NO alcohol to give me courage, a great night's sleep the night before (hence I wasn't that tired) and a really fun day so I felt great... but now it was time to get TOTALLY SPOOKED. My tent was massive, I was all alone with about 6 empty beds and an internal empty space that seemed to be growing and the wind was whistling through. Once I had clambered into bed with loads of blankets and the invaluable sleeping bag to keep the bugs off me I was just too freaked to even get out again. I couldn't read, it was just too damn cold to even have your hand out of the bed and of course I didn't have any gloves!
I slept for about 1 hour maximum and I just spent all night thinking about ghosts/Jinn/Genies , which many of my Arab student have described to me in lots of detail over the years. I kept willing them to stay away from me and kept thinking about my great trip up to this point and what a great waste it would be for me to die or be possessed by evil spirits at this point in my trip! It was awful. Honestly it was the worst night of my entire trip! I will NEVER sleep or rather attempt to sleep in the desert again!
About 6.30am I was so glad it was getting light and I crawled out of my cavernous tent feeling pretty grim but a cup of sage tea soon revived me and I managed to climb up a rock for sunrise and got chatting to a Mexican guy who enjoyed dressing up like a Bedouin and was obviously often mistaken for a local (apart from his grasp of Arabic!)
Our camp from the top of the rock which I was really proud that I climbed up in my knackered and freaked out state! Unfortunately the sunrise wasn't that impressive due to the clouds.
The morning tea which revived my spirits! My outrageous imagination had been on overdrive that night.
About 8am we all got in the jeep and drove back to the main house in the village. 3 Japanese guys, 2 Brazilians and 2 Brits along with an Aussie volunteer.
I quickly sent an emergency text to my Mum to tell her I was alive and posted a few photos on facebook to show that I had managed to dodge the bombs in Israel. Not being able to blog was making my Mum panic. I had only really heard about how bad things were in Israel from meeting the tourists that previous evening. I had been so unbelievably lucky, being about 36-48 hours ahead of the troubles and travelling about in ignorant bliss.
In the village my taxi driver was waiting for me ready to transport me in style to Petra. I drank an extremely strong and large coffee to keep me awake and my wits about me and then off we went. The joys of Petra awaited!
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