Wadi Rum

And then we get to the dessert… 

For me the idea of the desert has always been associated with orange sand and large dunes, like the ones I saw in Namibia, but the Wadi rum desert is another type of desert, a rocky one, it has a couple of dune sites but they are small.  This dessert is famous because is where Lawrence of Arabia used to lived here, and ist rocky landscape is stunning 

Even though we have read many blogs it was not clear to me how it would work. All of the accommodations have great rating in all the web sites, only if you dig it a little bit you will find some unpleasant reviews. We booked two nights at the Moonrock camp, because their website seemed quite modern and because the internet contact was fast. We had said that the first day we wanted to do a jeep tour and another day something trekking.

We arrive to Rum village in the daily bus that runs from Wadi Musa to Wadi Rum (between 6 or 6:30 depending where are you sleeping). We arrange the ticket in our hotel and a taxi came to pick us. The bus is really small and you will have to carry your own luggage since there is no place to put it.

The bus ride is about 2 hours, and during the trip the bus driver stop to buy bread and falafel to distribute among the passengers, it was delicious!!

Once you arrive to the Wadi Rum visitor center you have to stamp your Jordan pass. Some people stop here, but we went till Wadi rum village.

Mamdouh the bedouin who ran our campsite came to pick us, it is a family campsite that in the last year had been remodeled for tourists, he was the oldest brother and he has been working with tourist for 10 years. Now he runs the family business with the help of other members of the family.

He took us to his "office" a room where some Bedouins smoked shisha and explained to us how the tour was going to be that day, basically it is 5 hours in a jeep  showing different spots.

Our guide and yeep driver for the day was the youngest brother of the family, and we did the tour with a French couple (they were in another jeep with one cousin of our driver). At some point the start to race, we have to told them to stop.

Our day was discovering different popular sites, in many of the places there were a lot of people stopping in the same plac, we visit Lawerence’s spings, some dunes (really small ones) a couple of canions, and at the end we went to see the sunsent seeting on a rock.

Afterwards we have dinner in the camp (cook in a beduin style, the have a hole in the sund and use it as owen)

For our second day in wadi rum we talked to Mamdouh and we arrange another jeep tour but this one heading south, almost in the border with araba saudi, we were so close that get a sms in our mobile “welcome to arabia saudi the tariff)

We visit different places, and our tour guide explains how the beduins live in the desert, manage to keep the water from the rainy season to last longer,  and we stop to help a couple that was having problems with their car.

Before going to see the sunset, be another dune, this one much more better that the one we visit the first day. finally we got to another viewpoint to see the sunset. In the evening, since we were the only ones in our camp we chat a little bit with Mandouh, he explain to us a little bit of their culture and even so us some videos of a wedding where mens and women celebrity it completely separated.

The next day he took us to the wadi rum village and from there we took a taxi to Aqaba, he was so kind that give us some tee as a present.

The desert is the perfect place to enjoy the starts, I did my best to take some pictures, this is the second time I tried.

MoonRock Camp : https://www.moonrockcamp.com

We paid 270 Jod, 2 people, 2 nights, jeep tour each day, the second one we were almost alone the hole day.

40 Jod taxi from Wadi rum village to Aqaba

(prices Nov 2019)