Into the Desert
…..to Wadi Rum.
Anyone familiar with T.E.Lawrence will recognize Wadi Rum as the desert headquarters of this Englishman who collaborated in the Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Ottoman Turks.
At the entrance to the wadi, we met up with our Jeep drivers who would take us on a rollicking tour of the desert and eventually to our desert camp. My very skilled Bedouin driver was named Suleymon. The rock formation known as the Seven Pillars of Wisdom (named for Lawrence’s book) is a fitting welcome just at the entrance.
There is no real road through Wadi Rum, just Jeep tracks.
And there’s a price to pay for too much rollicking…
The landscape has a certain Martian feel.
This rock bridge was irresistible to a few of our more intrepid climbers.
Our digs for this night were at the Wadi Rum Luxury Camp, which had two kinds of accommodations: traditional tents and these bubbles, which definitely added to the feeling we were on Mars..
I opted for the tent, even though it didn’t have a bathroom (they’re under construction, so you have to go to a communal building, which was very modern and clean), while a few others enjoyed the bubbles, which do. Those folks reported amazing views of the stars during the night. The food was amazing and plentiful, and we sat on poufs on the floor to dine. Later we gathered at this sort of plaza in the shade of a huge rock formation and enjoyed a warm fire and the hookah. In the photo below the plaza is to the left of the large tent below the rocks. Don’t know what I was thinking — I neglected to photograph the night scene at the fire. Duh.
The night was absolutely dark, with billions of stars scattered overhead, seeming close enough to touch. I slept soundly in the absolute quiet of the desert.