Dubai Post 78: Wadi Rum

Thousands of years ago the sea carved a valley in the southern part of Jordan and today only a desert remains. This is no ordinary desert.  The beauty of Wadi Rum surpasses that of any other desert I have seen thus far.

As we head into Wadi Rum on the back of a pickup. 

A lone camel. 

In order to see as much of Wadi Rum as we could, we hoped onto the back of a pickup truck and had a local show us around.  Our tour guide for the three hour excursion was actually the soon to be leader of the Bedouin community, “Rum Village”.  Some of my favorite parts of the tour was just sitting back and listening to him talk while taking in the sites.

Our tour guide Yasir.  One of my favorite stories is how he could
cure a poisonous snake bite by simply slapping it with his saliva
on his fingers. 

You will see many camel caravans while wandering in the desert. 

Looking out into the desert through a crevasse we
climbed into. 

The landscape was simply incredible and provided us with some of the most scenic views I have seen in my life.  Giant red stone rocks so perfectly carved surrounded us as we drove through the desert.  The ground was vibrant red sand making it an obvious choice to film the movie Red Planet in Wadi Rum.  (It was also the site of Lawrence of Arabia, Transformers 2 and Prometheus). 

One of the Bedouin tents we stopped at.  Here we had complimentary
tea. 

A view looking out from top of a dune. 

Climbing the famous red sand dunes.  The sand was incredibly fine.
The best part was running down. 

Climbing to Lawrence’s spring was my favorite part of the journey.  For those that do not know the story of Lawrence of Arabia, he was a Brit who led the Arabs in the Arab revolt of the Ottoman Empire.  Wadi Rum was the base of his operations and the spring was used to feed his troops.  It was a short and easy hike up the rock face.  The entire hike I was in fear of snakes and scorpions as Yasir (tour guide) warned us they like to linger under these rocks. The spring was not the oasis you would imagine but the stunning views were worth the hike.

Looking up at Lawrence's spring. 

A view from not even half way up. 

The tiny spring that still provides some Bedouins with water. 

This dog climbed up with us, we named him Lawrence naturally.  He
somehow showed up at a number of sites we stopped at. 

We heard a shout and saw Brylski standing in the distant.
The kid loved to climb rocks. 

I have never toured the deserts of the South Western portion of the United States, but the pictures look very similar to Wadi Rum.  I now hope to plan a trip here in hopes of seeing another striking desert landscape.  

Yasir standing looking at the sunset.  Wondering what he could
have been pondering...

Looking at the desert as the sunset paints the rocks with orange
and red. 

A fitting end to a great day.