Thoughts On [insert religious topic(s) here]

This morning was an incredibly laid back morning. We didn’t have to be in Wadi Rum till 4 and we didn’t have to be out of our hotel till noon. Habits are hard to break though and we were both up by 7 AM. We got some breakfast-and lunch . At breakfast we met Kelly, who had just gotten to Petra last night from Amman and was going to see the city today. We had gotten 2-day passes yesterday and, since we were exhausted from the hiking yesterday, gave her our extra passes. After breakfast we rested in the room, watching the American economy crisis and being thankful to have a few days to wait to re-enter into that situation.

At lunchtime we had a quick bite to eat then headed out of Petra for Wadi Rum. This drive wouldn’t be as long as the one two days ago, but would still take a good two hours. This time we were on the Desert Highway, a more traditional highway that would get us quickly down to Wadi Rum.

The drive wasn’t too bad except for the fact that we almost ran out of gas. Reliable rentals has this weird rule that you get the car with almost no fuel in the tank and you return the car with whatever fuel is left in it. It’s a cheap practice on their part because they just harvest the leftover fuel and save it to put a bit in every rental so we didn’t want to leave them with any more fuel than necessary. However, we also didn’t want to get stranded on the side of the Desert Highway.

When we got near Wadi Rum I noticed that we were below a quarter tank and still had to drive into Wadi Rum and back out to Aqaba. So we stopped and got the car back up to over a half tank. So much for sticking it to the man…

We turned off the Desert Highway and into Wadi Rum only to discover that the camp we were booked at, Beit Ali, was the Motel 6 equivalent of Bedouin camping. It was a building with 8 white tents out behind it. We both said “Nope” and headed further into Wadi Rum to Rum Village. Here we found a camp out in the desert for 25 dinari per person for a night. However, they stiff you with transportation to the camp. It ended being 64 dinari for a Jeep ride to the camp we were staying at.

At 4 PM, we got in a Jeep with our guide, a 17 year old Bedouin named Ali who took us around Wadi Rum showing us all the “famous” sights. The actual sites were a bit hokey and Ali wasn’t explaining much. The exciting part was that the sun was setting behind us as we looked at many of the mountains. Therefore, they had a deep red color like the stones at Petra. That was beautiful and I took plenty of pictures of the mountains and sand dunes. The sand coming off the mountains was also a deep shade of red. It’s no wonder that the Bible called this land “Edom” meaning red.

Contrasting stones in the Wadi Rum desert

Right as the sun was getting ready to set, we arrived at our Bedouin camp for the night. It is located right against a “hill” that opens up to a wide plain with miles of sand stretching out. The “hill” is a rock that is about 50 feet high with ledges and cliffs all over it. The first thing I did after we got our luggage out of the Jeep was to climb to the top of the rock and see the sunset.

Our Bedouin camp. In the back to the left is the

Since this trip began I have gotten much more comfortable in my ability to climb on rocks and such. In the past I have been nervous about whether my legs would be able to keep their balance since my balance is a big problem for me. But I’ve started climbing more intentional and having more trust in myself to maintain my balance. So now I’m comfortable climbing a bunch of things that a year ago I wouldn’t have even attempted for fear of sliding down. So with this new found comfort, I climbed atop the rock and got an amazing view of the sun going behind the mountains beyond us.

The sun setting over the mountains of Wadi Rum. If you look really hard, you can see a guy on the right-most mountain.

As the sun set, we met our companions at the camp, Luis, Maria, and Angels. All three speak Spanish fluently but thankfully Maria has pretty good English so she has been able to convey enough to keep conversation going. Maria and Angels work in Jerusalem with Doctors With Out Borders, serving the Palestinians in the area. They are on vacation for a few weeks and have spent the last two nights in the desert. Luis is a professional photographer from Spain.

All three of them have a ton of energy and really enjoy joking and trying to converse with Americans. It’s a blessing that Jac’line and I as well as the three of them tried very hard to overcome the language barrier so that we could have conversations.

I decided to sleep up on top of the rock so that at night I could see the stars from all around as well as the moon rise around 2 AM. I forgot however that when it gets dark in the desert, it gets DARK! So, my bed was actually right in the sand next to Jac’line since I couldn’t make my way back up the rock in the darkness.

This is where I was originally going to sleep until it got too dark to safely get to

After we had all gotten settled, Mohammed, the Bedouin who lives at the camp brought us dinner in one of the tents. The dinner was a spread of pita, hummus, salad rice, potatoes, onions and chicken that he cooked in an underground charcoal oven. Along with the dinner, he brought us a steeping pot of Bedouin tea. YUMMY!!! We sat on the floor around tables and enjoyed a great meal together.

As we were finishing the meal, Mohammed brought out a lute-which he was a master at-and a drum. We spent the next two hours talking, drinking tea, and making music. I tried to play the lute a bit but had a hard time finding any notes or progressions that made sense to me. Furthermore, the lute has no frets so for a guitar player that was more than a little weird. I did get a chance to bang out a few beats on the drum which sounded good-I hope.

Mohammed and Luis play some music for us in the tent

As the night was winding down, around midnight, we went to our beds out in the sand and got settled for bed. I didn’t end up sleeping much that night because the sky was AMAZING! Not only could I see an innumerable amount of stars, but I could actually see part of the Milky Way galaxy stretching across the sky peppered with thousands of stars. I laid there, listening to Death Cab for Cutie just in awe of the beauty before me.

Around 3 AM I was woken by the light coming from the moon that had risen above the mountains. It was so bright that it looked as if someone had left the porch light on. Also, the constellation Orion had risen above the mountains with the moon and it was so clear. It was just an intense vividness of stars and galaxy and moon.

I’m exhausted today, but it was so worth it for the sights I saw last night.

Shalom,

Mat