I had contacted Wild Wadi Rum Desert Adventure website by email and ended up corresponding with a young Bedouin man called Salman. I remember saying at work
‘Guess what I just did at lunchtime?’
No answer.
‘Emailed a Bedouin!’
‘What’s a Bedouin?’, was the answer.
I caught a taxi from Wadi Musa (Petra) to the visitor’s centre at Wadi Rum (it cost JD40 = AUD80) and met Salman who turned out to be a 22 year old Bedouin whose family lived in the Wadi Rum Village. He informed me that the Bedouins don’t really live in Wadi Rum anymore as they have all moved into the village. He was very enthusiastic and told me he had studied at university to become a primary school teacher but had not found work yet. As we drove out into the wadi (valley) my jaw started to drop. It was both immense and beautiful.
Any film buff will know that this is where ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ was filmed and also where Lawrence really did spend time fighting with the Bedouins (mainly against the Turks I believe). It is an awesome place!
We finally reached the camp at about 4pm and I quickly asked what time sunset would be before depositing my luggage in my tent. I had a quick look around and then it was time to go for a walk at 4.30pm to catch a few sunset shots.
As soon as the sun went down it got cold – really cold. I walked quickly back to my tent and hopped under a blanket to wait for dinner. In the desert in Dubai it didn’t really get cold overnight but in Wadi Rum I was freezing and any hopes of sleeping out under the stars were quickly swapped for a desire to stay inside my tent under lovely warm blankets. Dinner was good; a nice rice combination, a chicken stew type dish, some salad and some flat bread. It was what was needed to keep warm and sated.
I sat and talked to a French couple from Paris for awhile in the dinner tent. They were good to speak to and well travelled. There were also a Hungarian couple and three young Malaysian people there. One of the Malaysian people, a young man, was studying Sharia in Jordan and had picked up some Arabic and was conversing with the Bedouins at the camp. I was in bed by 8.30pm as there was very little electricity (powered by solar) and therefore little light and I just couldn’t get warm.
I woke up in the middle if the night thinking it would be around 2 or 3am and was disappointed to see on my phone that it was only 10pm. And worse still, I had to get out from under my nice warm blankets and go to the toilet block. Damn! Then it was back to bed and I slept fitfully the rest of the night.
