After spending a day and a half in Petra, it was finally time to hit the road again.

Today would take me 100km further south to Wadi Rum.

A late start

My tour of Wadi Rum wasn’t until 3pm and it took just under 2 hours to get there which meant I didn’t have to leave until 1pm.

Instead of revisiting the Petra site this morning to see the Treasury at sunrise and get that “iconic” photo of myself looking down at the Treasury from the rock cliff above, I decided I was just gonna take it easy this morning.

After all, it had been a long grueling day of alot of walking yesterday.

I did wake up at 9am but basically spent the morning in bed juicing every last minute of the king size bed I could before I had to hit my 11am checkout time.

I put together yesterday’s blog and checked in for my flight to Cairo tomorrow night.

At 11am I finally packed everything up and brought all my stuff downstairs to checkout.

Conveniently, I had to return my key to the man at the restaurant so I sat myself down for a nice late breakfast or, well, honestly let’s just call it lunch.

I chose another Jordanian dish called the Camel Meal.

No, not chamomile like the tea…

A meal of camel meat sauteed with peppers and sauce with a side of rice.

I thought it would taste gamey but, honestly, it just tasted like a normal beef stirfry.

Back on the road

I was done my meal by noon and I had a choice to make.

I had an hour to kill.

Do I just hang out in this restaurant for an hour or do I hit the road and drive a little slower to get to Wadi Rum.

I chose to leave early figuring perhaps I’d find something interesting on the way down.

It felt weird to once again put the car in drive after I had parked it for a day and a half.

But here I was, pulling out of Petra and onto the wide open roads of the Desert Highway.

I didn’t even drive slower than I had planned because the speed limit most of the way was only 60kmh and it already felt like I was going at a snail’s pace.

As far as seeing another noteworthy to checkout on the way down, well, not so much.

So, I just took a nice scenic ride down taking the time to think about things outside of the trip like life back home and what I want my future to be like.

It really is a good time for contemplation when you have a long drive ahead of you.

Eventually the speed limit did ramp up to a whopping 110kmh which took me by surprise after crawling along at 60 for so long.

Jordan has, however, in their infinite wisdom placed random speed bumps in the roadway so while you’re going 110kmh you all of a sudden have to slam on the brakes to take the bump at 40kmh.

Why are the speed bumps there?

No idea.

They are literally in the middle of a highway with no pedestrians or stores or anything nearby.

I finally arrive in Wadi Rum at 2:15 and after a quick checkin with the tourist police at the Visitors Center, I drove a bit down the road to where I’d be parking my car and my driver would be picking me up.

Wadi Rum

Okay, a little background on Wadi Rum.

Wadi Rum, also known as the Valley of the Moon, is a valley cut into the sandstone and granite rock.

Yes, I copy/pasted that from Wikipedia.

If you’ve ever seen a movie about Mars, it was probably filmed here.

This vast desert area is full of unique rock faces and this vibrant red sand everywhere.

Films like The Martian, Mission to Mars, Dune, and Red Planet have all been filmed here.

Also, Lawrence of Arabia, Prometheus, Aladdin, and even some of the Star Wars have been filmed here too.

There are several Bedouin camps strewn out through the valley each offering packages of overnight stays and jeep tours through the valley.

I chose Wadi Rum Fire Camp because they had good reviews and, honestly, they had the best prices.

They offer jeep tours ranging from all day to 2, 3 and 4 hours.

I chose the combination of overnight stay with a 3 hour sunset tour.

3 Hour Jeep Tour

Despite arrive 45 minutes early, my guide Awad was already waiting for me along with another guy joining me on the 3 hour tour this afternoon.

James, a doctor from Wales, had arrived around noon as was just waiting around for 3pm to arrive.

So, coming early actually worked out for all involved.

It was actually kind of nice to have someone with me on the tour this afternoon as we spent most of the time chatting and, I gotta tell ya, James is one of the more interesting people I’ve come across in my travels.

He’s a doctor who wants to specialize in taking care of refugees and he’s actually here in Jordan for 2 or 3 months to learn Arabic.

He also live the van life.

I’ve seen countless videos of people living out of their vans but I’ve never actually met anyone who did.

It took him a full year and a half to convert his van into a living space much due to the pitfalls of trial and error as he learned how to do it as he went.

For the last couple of years he’s been living in the van parked in the hospital parking lot 5 days a week while he worked and then out on the road the other 2 days.

I gotta say the conversation was really fascinating and I really enjoyed my time with him this afternoon.

As for the 3 hour time, here are the highlights we saw…

Just a couple minutes from the pickup area was our first stop, Lawrence Spring.

It was a good introduction to Wadi Rum and, of course, my camera started snapped all the unique red rockfaces and this cool little tree seemingly so out of place.

Next were the Red Sand Dunes which, of course, elicited flashbacks to my time sandboarding down the sand dunes in Huacachina during my time in Peru last fall.

This sand dune wasn’t in need of a dunebuggy to get to the top as you can easily walk up the dune yourself in about 5 minutes.

Well, I say easily, but damn, my legs were still killing me from yesterday and walking up a hill in sand is a pretty good workout for the calves.

I made it though and from the top you really start to appreciate how vast Wadi Rum is.

After that we stopped by The Siq al Khazali Canyon which was a naturally carved little pathway in the rocks.

It only took about 10 minutes to get in and out and, again, I just took time to look around at all the wonderous sites around.

Next was the Little Bridge which was where we finally saw our first real group of tourists.

The Little Bridge is located on top of a rock that you have to precariously climb up to.

At the top was a group of about two dozen Asian tourists each taking their time to take a photo atop the bridge.

Of course I also get my photo taken but, me being me, decided to show you the photo of all the tourists for the blog.

Following that, we drove over to The Abu Khasaba Canyon where Awad dropped us off and told us he would pick us up on the other side.

It was just me and James at this site so we walked solitarily through the canyon for about 20 minutes.

About halfway through though there was what seemed like an impossible cluster of rocks blocking the way.

I had to double check that we hadn’t taken a wrong turn but, nope, this was the way through.

James ended up giving me a boost over the large boulder and then I pulled him up.

I shutter to think what I would have done if I was on this tour by myself.

The penultimate stop was at The Medium Bridge which, honestly, put that Little Bridge we saw earlier to shame.

Now this was a bridge carved out of stone.

The climb up looked pretty steep and, honestly, by this point I was pretty tired.

James climbed up though and did this iconic pose.

Oh, and just an FYI, I’m going to tell people that was me at the top.   Shh, don’t tell anyone!

By now it was almost 6pm and it was time to head to our final stop of the day where we’d sit and watch the sunset over the rocks and the desert.

Awad started a fire with wood we had pulled out of the little shrubs littered throughout the sand and prepared us some sage cinnamon cardamom tea.

And then we watched as the sun went down on the day.

And what a day it had been.

After the tour, I felt like I picked the right length at 3 hours as it was just enough to see everything.

Bedouin Fire Camp

As we pulled up to our camp in the middle of the desert, the sky was now pretty dark.

I was shown to my little cabana/tent and settled in.

Off came the shoes and out came all the sand I had accumulated in them.

The camp itself is more refined that I had envisioned.

My little cabana had running electricity to light the run but, of course, no outlets to charge anything.

The communal bathroom in a separate bathroom had fully functioning western toilets and even a couple of shower stalls.

And, finally, the main building where we’d spend the rest of the evening before bed was fully enclosed and warm.

Oh, and it had power outlets so we all plugged in our various technologies to give them much needed charge ups.

Dinner

Myself, along with James, a twosome from Malaysia, and an older man from France were the only ones staying at the camp tonight and we all congregated in the dining hall around 7:00.

At 7:30 dinner was served.

It was a big dish of chicken and rice and some side plates of different salads.

I felt bad for the Malaysian guy who was vegetarian as he couldn’t have the rice because they had mixed in pieces of chicken into it.

I ended up chatting most of the time with the man from France.

His name was Raphael and he could possibly be the most interesting person I’ve ever met…

Raphael

I never asked but I assume he was in his 50s or possibly 60s.

He has been traveling for 14 years now.

Yup, he’s a true nomad with no home just going from country to country.

He supports his travels by renting out an apartment he owns in France and has been going everywhere for over a decade first by bicycle and now by motorbike.

In total he’s been to 50 countries with many of them I have yet to visit including a bunch in the Middle East and up in Central Asia.

Naturally, he found himself trapped when covid hit.

Luckily he was trapped in Peru and not some small desolate country.

He was trapped there for 16 months.

Can you imagine?

That little tourist town of Huacachina I mentioned earlier, well, he was trapped there for 3 months.

To put it in perspective, that town is super small with only a couple main streets and a small oasis at the bottom of these high sand dunes.

The place is 100% tourism driven meaning every business there is either a restaurant or hotel.

And he was trapped there for 3 months!

Like I said, one of the more interesting people I’ve ever met.

Anyway, by 9pm it was time to head to bed.

I have a very early start tomorrow as I’ve riding a camel into the desert to see the sunrise.

Can’t wait!