20 May 2024

Thank goodness we had later times to get up given the really early starts over the past week. Breakfast from 8am and checkout 9.30am.

We had breakfast and then left the hotel to drive from Aqaba to Wadi Rum. I have not looked up the schedule for Jordan or any information on the various towns so as to be a surprise.

Some of the information from our tour guide (Abed) included that the population in Aqaba had increased from 100K to 240k in 10 years. This is an occurrence across Jordan with many migrants which I will provide more info on at the end. Aqaba is also Jordan’s only sea port, being situated at the north of the Gulf of Aqaba.

Jordan’s working week covers the period Sunday to Thursday, with Friday being the main day off, and Saturday sometimes as well. There is a lot more about Jordan that our tour guide has provided which I will wrap up together at the end of the Jordan section of the trip.

Prior to leaving Aqaba, we stopped at the Red Sea for photographs, from where we could see Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. We are travelling to Wadi Rum, a protected desert wilderness in southern Jordan, including dramatic sandstone mountains and natural arches. It also includes many petroglyphs, inscriptions and carvings going back over 12,000 years.

The drive to Wadi Rum was through mountains that were very rocky. We reached the accommodation site, checked into the 5 star “glamping” tent before lunch and I had a nice hot shower which was great set because I didn’t have one before checking out in the morning.

We went on a 4 hour “jeep” ride through the desert. It was meant to start at 1pm but postponed to 3pm due to the heat. The jeeps were actually Isuzu D-Maxes of various ages with seats set up like Troopies in the back tray with a canvas shade roof above.

The drive was along sandy tracks between various rock formations. The ride was very hot and dusty. However it was worth it. There were so many amazing formations. The horizontal layers and vertical textures were really great. We also got to see petroglyphs in one area, akin to the rock art in Dampier but on one piece of rockface.

Due to the amount of dust in the air, the rock formations became less clear the further they were away.

We stopped off 4 times at various tents set up in the desert area for selling drinks, linen materials and touristy stuff. We even came across a volleyball game going on. Finding these places in the heat of the desert itself was surprising but I guess there are a lot of tourists. We had 5 vehicles ourselves plus saw another 4 or 5. The guide says they get up above 25 at one time in peak season. One of the specific sites included a reference to T. E. Lawrence’s House (T. E. Laurance being the British lieutenant known as “Lawrence of Arabia”). See the photo with the yellow “Trips Slips Falls” sign. At this site there were many piled rocks similar to Scottish cairns.

We stopped at the top of the hill overlooking our campsite to watch the sun go down. Interestingly there wasn’t a real sunset as the sun just disappeared as it got close to the horizon. There was no change in colour as we see in so many sunsets at home. We had dinner at 8pm. It was quite a spread. They cooked chicken, lamb, vegetables and rice among hot coals in a “kiln” below the ground, then brought it in to go with the rest of the food. Delicious.

I wanted to take photos of the stars however it being 3 days before a full moon so the skies are quite bright. There are also at least 200 camps in Wadi Rum. Whilst I wandered around through the hills and rock formations for an hour until 10.30pm, I could not find any sites to see stars or where there were no other camps with shiny lights, so I didn’t capture anything of value.