Desert or Dessert? - Ho Hum In Wadi Rum

Back when I was in public elementary school, my teacher tried to help my fellow students and I learn how to differentiate between the spelling for 'desert' and 'dessert'.  The difference is in the number of 's'," she said. "Everybody loves desserts, therefore you want one MORE 's'." But nobody wants to be stuck in a desert, so you want one LESS 's'." As flawed as that logic seems to me now, it made perfect sense to me at the time.  I have yet to eat sand after dinner.

We had originally planned to visit Petra for a second day because so many guide books and Internet posts recommend 2-3 days there.  Really?  One day of sore feet was good enough for us.  Since we had no other plans, Bashar recommended a trip to a popular site called Wadi Rum (Wadi means 'valley' and Rum is an alcoholic beverage usually made with sugarcane).  In the limited research I did on Jordan, I found that many people consider it the second best tourist site in the country.  Some folks, including Bashar, enjoy it even more than Petra.  We had earlier decided to forego a visit there because of lack of time (most tourists camp there overnight) and lack of interest (we didn't enjoy our trip to the Thar Desert last year).

"Would there be any walking involved?" I whined.  Our guide replied, "No, we can either rent a jeep or a camel--". "No $@&@! camels," I protested.  Why compound sore feet with an aching ass.

After checking out of the hotel, we proceeded south on the King's Highway for 1.5 hours until we reached the Jabal Rum camp.  Our Bedouin driver pulled up in a filthy Nissan pickup truck.  If this were back home in Tennessee, I'd say he had just gone muddin'.  The wife and I piled in the cabin and headed out into the desert with him.  There were no roads, but a route was marked by red arrows painted onto rocks on the ground.  He would stop (or I would ask him to stop) in order for us to take some photographs.  He spoke no English and I spoke no Arabic, making our conversation just a series of gesticulations and grunts.

The highlights in Wadi Rum are the unusual rock formations.

The desert wasn't completely devoid of vegetation.  There were actually many small bushes and shrubs that dotted the landscape.

We also noticed a phallic-looking plant poking out of the sand.

This plant can be crushed to make red dye.

Our guide showed us more methods of collecting and storing water in the desert.

That cistern is likely a cesspool of cholera.

In the unlikely event that it rains, this canal will help collect the water.

There are also some interesting rock wall writings, some Nabateans and others Thamudic. These drawings depict men on camels hunting horned animals such as antelopes.

All Greek to me

Since antelopes cannot thrive in today's desert, perhaps Jordan was more green and lush in the past?

Camels certainly thrived in this region in that era.

Simply put, the desert was deserted. For the first hour, there was not another soul in sight.  Then, as we pulled up to a large rock bridge, lo and behold, we saw a group of Indian people filming a Bollywood production.  An hour later we passed a lonely Bedouin herding his camels over some sand dunes. And that was about it for people during our three hours in the desert.

They weren't doing of the typical Bollywood dancing, so I'm sure the movie will suck

$@*&! camel.

We sat around for awhile letting the fine sand sift between our fingers and toes while the unrestrained wind whipped around us.  Then we got bored.  Really bored.  For me, sand without a large body of water nearby is merely glass waiting to happen.  The solitude of the desert is only relaxing for a short while. I'm not the type who enjoys sitting around and doing nothing.  I can do that in front of my TV at home.  I don't need to travel halfway around the world to accomplish that.

 

Unable to communicate with our driver that we were okay heading back early, we waited the full three hours and returned to the Jabal Rum camp.  From there, it was a three hour drive to the airport near Amman.  Although there are plenty of restaurants in the terminal where we could have eaten dinner, we eschewed them in favor of the sweets in the duty free shops.

Sadly, I have no clue what the desserts are called. All I know is that I would rather sit there stuffing my face with them rather than spend more time in any desert.  I guess my teacher was right after all.

On the EgyptAir flight from Amman to Cairo, we were the only non Middle-Eastern passengers.  I'm sure those long-bearded men wearing robes and Arabic scarves probably would have freaked out many ignorant passengers on American flights.  But then again, I wonder if those Arabic passengers were nervously thinking, "Are those two Asian people gonna hijack the plane?"