Wadi Rum

Our third day in Jordan we met up with our driver and headed for Wadi Rum, TE Lawrence's old stomping ground. Even before heading on this trip I'd tried to hunt down Lawrence's "memoir" about his time in the desert - good thing he didn't go on Oprah to promote the book, from what I've heard. I found this free copy of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, but I decided I wanted to make my first Kindle purchase, so I forked over the $1.48 for the ebook. Now that I've actually seen the place, I'm looking forward to reading the book when I get back to Egypt.

Initially we'd intended to spend the night in the desert in a Bedouin tent. One of our companions had an eleventh-hour change of heart, though, so we ended up extending our Petra visit and taking the time out of our Wadi Rum trip. I was disappointed because I adore the desert - and what a desert this is! - but we had such a great time in Petra, I don't have much to complain about.

Our guide begged to differ. Well, to be precise, our guide's boss was the problem. He was very irritated that we were changing our plans (even though we'd called in advance to tell him), and let me tell you, the back of a dusty jeep holding all your water is not the place to be dickering with a Bedouin over price. At one point, Mr. Attayak cast a baleful glare into the jeep, eyed our companions, and said, "Israeli? Jews always argue over the price." I was mortified at this breach of hospitality, but a little bit later we came to an agreement on the price and the Bedouin apologized for any hostility - he blamed the heat. I was glad to get going.



We basically spent the day tooling around the easy part of the canyon system. We visited Lawrence's spring (I should've known the hike would be unpleasant when our guide pointed up the rock face, lit a cigarette, and settled back into the jeep cab) which had a great view but was a balls-hot climb (first pic up above). Wadi Rum's stones are inscribed with petroglyphs, early arabic writing, hunters, camels, the lot.


KC and I raced up bona-fide sand dunes (still haven't gotten to the Sahara proper! How is it taking so long?), squeezed through carved canyons, scrambled up slickrock to graceful arches (KC had a few tense moments but he pulled through), and got absolutely, through-and-through filthy. We even made our way past roaming herds of camels, complete with nasty-looking camel babies. What do you call a baby camel? Veal?


For lunch we threw the bedding from the back of the Jeep below an overhanging rock to take advantage of the only six inches of shade we could see for miles. Our guide produced two types of hummus, some baladi, and a couple of cans of fish for our lunch. I took heart when he put his battered tin kettle on the flames and started preparing the strong, sweet tea the Bedouins are known for.


Wadi Rum was cool, but it was sort of a throw-away trip. We didn't have enough time to get ourselves into serious trouble, although we did make the effort by pissing off our desert guide. I was very irritated at first by having to push my way through hordes of elderly Spanish and English tourists to see the first rock carvings. But when I grumbled to our guide, he promised that we wouldn't see any more people for the rest of the day - and he was basically right. That's why I like the desert.