Wadi Rum- Take 3

**note: I started writing this post a while ago and finished it on May 22.**

I first went to Wadi Rum at the end of September, about a month into this study abroad. I said then that it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I went to Wadi Rum again in April, spending the morning on a camel trek (my camel and I were the last ones in a caravan of about sixty- it was leisurely and idyllic), spending the night walking and stargazing, the stars especially brilliant due to a new moon. Sitting on top of an auburn dune, watching the sun set behind rose-red mountains, my original sentiment regarding Wadi Rum was confirmed.



The third trip to Wadi Rum occurred just a couple of weeks ago. For our last long weekend, four friends and I spent Wednesday evening and Thursday morning in Petra, and then headed out to Rum for two nights of desert camping. In Petra, we followed a second, smaller Siiq that brought us out near the Byzantine church (i.e. past all of the oldest Nabataean stuff), and then walked out the main Siiq, pausing only briefly to look at and say goodbye to the famous Treasury. Camping in Rum was fantastic, made infinitely better by the fact that two of our group members actually knew something about camping (for example: how to build a fire and then protect it from desert winds). Other fun parts of the experience:



- the food. Left on my own, I would have just brought a lot of bread, a jar of Nutella, a jar of peanut butter, and maybe a few apples. I'd be really sick of all of those things by the end, but it's sustenance and very easy to carry and prepare. However, 'D' had other plans for our cuisine, the most impressive of which had us roasting vegetables and chunks of fresh lamb (we found a butcher near Petra) over the open flames. Due to our lack of utensils or plates (we had a few spoons and a big communal bowl), we just took the chunks in our fingers and gnawed at them- a very fulfilling experience, actually, and promptly followed up with making smores.



- the Bedouins. To get to our campsite, we hired a driver from the Wadi Rum Visitor Center to take us out in his pick-up truck. My group consisted of two guys and three girls; one of the guys sat in the front and chatted with the driver. The first evening, we had three sets of visitors- the guy from the visitor's center (who had a campsite just around the mountain), the driver, and the brother & two friends of the driver. I am sure that our group was quite the novelty: college-age Americans who spoke Arabic. The third group drove up in the dark and asked if they might play their oud for us. As a note, the oud is a Middle Eastern instrument that belongs to the lute family. Anyway, being good pseudo-Arabs, we obviously couldn't say no, and so they sat around the fire with us and played and sang into the dark, starry night. We felt genuinely bad that we couldn't offer them tea (we had the pot, tea, and sugar but no cups), but alas. However, we made up for it. The next evening, in preparation for visitors, we cut off the bottoms of all of our empty big water bottles (to use as cups) and put a pot of water on the fire to heat for tea. Sure enough, the guy from the visitor center came over from his campsite to check on us and suggest that we move our tents into a slightly more sheltered area on account of the desert wind. While he walked off with the guys to discuss tent moving, the other three of us prepared tea, which we then drank while sitting around the fire as night fell. When he saw what we were using as cups, he laughed and remarked that it really was "Bedouin tea," although he did suggest that next time we boil the water with the sugar in it instead of adding sugar afterwards. Still, we were quite proud of ourselves, and must have been quite the novelty. Did you hear about those American kids? They speak Arabic and served a guest the obligatory tea!

- Sand dunes. D found a particularly large one free of vegetation while out walking, so we trooped over on Friday afternoon and climbed to the top. We spent the next hour or so rolling down it, dragging each other down it, and just lying in the soft sand playing the "what movie character would so-and-so be" game. Climbing up sand dunes is something of a work out, though, and we were tired by the end.



Wadi Rum, in a way, has formed the bookends of my time in Jordan. A month from the beginning, a month from the end. In the words of a friend, "coming to Wadi Rum always makes me think, 'this is why I love this country.'" How very true.