We left Petra early in the morning and headed to Wadi Rum. I still have not quite formulated an opinion of my stay in Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum offers “extraordinary desert scenery” and was made famous by Lawrence of Arabia. Visiting Wadi Rum provides an opportunity to experience a protected desert area and learn about the Bedouin people and culture. Bedouins are predominately Muslim, desert-dwelling, Arab nomads. What isn’t advertised is that there aren’t very many Bedouins still roaming the desert and that most have traded their tents, camels and nomadic lifestyle for concrete block homes and jeeps. So, I am not sure if I should appreciate my opportunity to learn about this historic nomadic lifestyle or feel duped into an over-glorified camping trip in the desert.
Our desert trip began with tea at our guide’s house. Mohammed, our guide, didn’t end up taking us through the desert as the birth of his 10th child required his attention at home. So, we set off in our rickety 1970’s Landcruiser with an English couple, a gal from Singapore and a girl from Egypt, into the desert to check out the sites. Our 6 hour jeep tour included many stops, although whether or not they were noteworthy is up to debate. Our Landcruiser made me pretty nervous. I kept my fingers crossed that it would start after each time it was turned off and that its fumes wouldn’t silently kill us along the way. Our trip ended at the “Sunset Camp” where we would camp for the night. TJ and I chose our tent then explored the small camp. First on my agenda was checking out the facilities. Let me just sum it up by saying the bathrooms were foul and I knew a 2nd visit could result in me barfing. What absolutely baffled us was a young, French-Canadian couple was volunteering at the camp for two months. Every day they used those facilities, endured the freezing weather and slept in the goat-hair tents. TJ wanted to call their parents to get them on the first Landcruiser out of there. While camping in the desert was a highly unusual way to spend Christmas Eve and an interesting experience, one night was plenty for us!
Watching the sun set over the desert was nice and then we played a few rounds of Rummy before dinner. The dinner festivities began with a “Bedouin” fellow playing music. It turned out this guy had pitched a tent over a nearby cave and called it home. Dinner followed along with more music and a bit of dancing. The sky was impressive with a bright array of stars. We retired to our tent, crawled on our mattresses on the sand and under our blankets in our layers of shirts, jeans, hats, gloves and coats and tried to go to sleep, even though we were in a tent in below freezing temperatures.
We managed to sleep and when we woke up it was Christmas! We had breakfast at the camp, then headed out with our new English friends in their rental car to Aqaba.
Aqaba was pretty nice. It was nicely situated on the Red Sea and had a lot more Western influences than the places we’d been. Trust me, if your options had been mostly limited to Arabic cuisine for a few weeks you might welcome the sight of the golden arches too! Plus, we he had a tradition to keep after dining at Mickie D’s last year with Carrie on Christmas Day in Cairo. Should you ever find yourself in the Middle East on Christmas day you should consider partaking in our tradition:)
Aqaba is popular with Jordanians from the North and Saudi’s. There is currently a ton of construction going on and it looks that Aqaba is heading in the direction of becoming a destination for those who are looking for high-end 5 star resorts. Aqaba offers a beach, waterfront, sunshine and water sports. Diving and snorkeling are major attractions, although a few people I met in Amman said all of the garbage in the water detracted from their experience.
We strolled along the waterfront, checked out the city, then planted at and English Pub for Christmas dinner and a beer or two. While we had a nice time at the Pub, we would have happily traded our meal for some good home cookin.’
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