Wadi Rum

 Wadi Rum  

We left our hostel on South Beach and drove up the coast to Aqaba. It was mostly an uninspiring journey past docks and industrial areas, container terminals and the railway terminus before we reached the main road out of Aqaba heading north towards Wadi Rum.

We left the special economic zone and were free to roam Jordan. We passed close to the railway that conects the port at Aqaba with the capital, Amman. In the siding was a stean engine used for tourist trains.

Some of the carriages.
We reached the Wadi Rum visitor centre and choose our preferred jeep trek, paid our entry fees and set off.

We were in a convoy of three 4x4s.

Leaving the Wadi Rum village.

Our first stop was at Lawrences' Spring, which rises out of Jordan's second highest mountain, whose summit at 1800 metres high is just a little further behind the cliff that we were looking at. History is written by the victors. The view that we have of Lawrence of Arabia, as depicted in the 1962 blockbuster film, Lawrence of Arabia starring Antony Quinn and Alec Guinness as being instrumental in leading the Arab revolt is slightly at odds with the Arab version of events where Lawrence is cast in more of a role of a military attache and bystander.

The spring here is near the base of a whit tree a little way up the mountain. It has existed for hundreds of years. A Nabatean inscription on a rock at the base of the cliff indictes its presence.

One of the other 4x4s.

The second stop, at the Red Dunes, as depicted in severla films such as Dune, Star Wars and a few I can't remember.

Looking back down the dune.

We passed several tented camps, some permanent and some marked as temporary on th map although they all looked long term sites. 

We stopped at Khazali Canyon, a deep cleft cut into the mountain.

Views up the cleft. 

Next stop was the Little Bridge, a natural rock arch.

Another view of one of the tented camps offering a Bedouin night camping in the desert.

We rounded a corner and there was another hill to climb for the view.

The view aross Wadi Rum.

And Lawrence's House, a structure that eisted before he arrived and where he spent six months living in the desert, waiting for the fighting season to start and for the Arab tribes to gather in force.

We raced cross the desert.

Sometimes side by side and sometimes nose to tail.

Um Frouth Rock Bridge. Another natural rock arch.

Another view.

A Nabatean Temple.

A rail wagon put to a different puepose as a cafe in Wadi Rum village.

We expected a stem train to pick us up in the middle of nowhere for a re-enactment of an Arab attack on an Ottoman train but it had suffered a breakdown and was cancelled.

A wind farm en route from Wadi Rum to Petra.

A view from one of the highest souvenir shops in the country, run by Queen Noors Foundation to better the plight of women in society. It must have been on every coach tour itinerary so whilst it was empty when we arrived, it has a massive car park and large toilets for ten people at a time.