Wadi Rum

This weekend our program took an overnight trip down to Wadi Rum, one of the most beautiful places on Earth and also the setting for the hit film, Lawrence of Arabia. We left Friday morning at about 8:30 in two busses. It was about a five hour drive, including a rest stop. The drive south of Amman was not particularly interesting, though it was my first time truly in the desert.

We didn’t arrive until the early afternoon, when we were dropped off in the middle of the desert. There we all hopped into the back of a bunch of pick-up trucks for a tour of Wadi Rum. We stopped off at a bunch of cool rock formations and climbed up this really big dune. In the end we watched a sunset off of another rock formation. Finally at about 7:00 we came to our campsite. We had a buffet dinner, which was really good and satisfying. Everyone hung around the campground for the rest of the night. Some people danced, others sat around a bonfire. I ended up playing rummy and then strolling through the desert with a few other people. On Saturday we got to ride across the desert on a big herd of camels. That was pretty cool. Camels are really interesting animals with a lot of personality. We got back Saturday night. Definitely a memorable experience.

The temperature was surprisingly cool for the desert. During the camel ride, there was a brisk wind and I got cold; but I also had forgotten my keffiyeh and got sunburned. When you're on foot or camelback in the desert, it's hard to tell how far away anything is. You can see something in the distance for hours before actually arriving there. Wadi Rum is an impressive place. The scale is just so big. It’s hard to describe without seeing it in person. Wadi Rum used to be underwater, but as the water retreated it took the sandstone with it, so now all that’s left are the towers of rock. Eventually, in tens of millions of years, all the rock will erode until eventually there’s nothing left.