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Published: June 30th 2009
I had the most incredible weekend of my life last weekend. We got out of class on Thursday (the new Friday) and began out journey to Wadi Rum which means Valley of Rum which is not an apt name for the location I am displeased to report. The RUM IS ALWAYS GONE...because it is haram aka super forbidden (lol harum)in Islam. Anyway we began the trip by riding in 4x4 truck beds (standing up) through the desert. We turned it into a race and our driver Hasan..Al Ahsan (it means Hasan the Best...we gave him the superlative) This crazy fool drove down the face of a sand dune OFF THE LEDGE! Like everyone elses truck stopped and slowly went off but my friend goes ALA SHAMAL (to the left) and this crazy man flings left and we fly down the dune, right off the ledge. It was INCREDIBLE!!!! We say ancient cave carvings, climbed up sand dunes and we rock climbing on the rock cliffs that popped up every where. We even jumped off rock faces and rolled down the sand dunes, well the four of us who were in the crazy truck. At sun set we climbed up the rock mountains to set up top, it was one of those incredible moments in life where you dont need a camera because you could never forget the colors that spread all over the sky and desert. That night we camped in Bedouin tents in this crevasse in the rock so that the tents were in this V along the rock wall and at the widest point there was a campfire with lounging couches where we ate with our hands and smoked hooka under the stars. I have never see so many stars in my life. The most beautiful sky in the entire world must be in Wadi Rum. Every 5 minutes or so you would see shooting stars and about every fourth shooting star was so bright it lit up the sky. The milky way could easily bee seen like large clouds beyond the stars that stretched across the entire sky until the horizon where fire works could be seen in front of the back drop of the sand pocked rock mountains. I laid outside the camp for hours just looking at the stars talking with friends as they joined me and left.
The next morning came the moment I had been waiting for...THE CAMEL RIDE! My camel was not quite as cool as the tiny camel phone charm, ( his name is shugfa which in Arabic means a fine piece of meat, that is what you call someone who is well...a fine piece of meat :P) I bought on the way there but it did not run off with me or try to throw me off like some of my friends camels did. I also was not give the reins ever >😞 but I will survive. I do however have a suggestion of the Bedouins, stop making seats on camels out of ply wood or by mattress padding for it. I swear with 10 minuets I could come up with a more comfortable design. It was really funny when I was trying to pick out my camel every camel I walked up to the Bedouins would lead me to a different camel just to have that one taken away from me, next time I am bringing my own. I have also decided my marriage price has be edited, I now have a going rate of 100 black camels. That would be way more intimidating storming over a dune than white camels which is considered the fancier color. After the camel ride we went to little Petra where more free climbing all over ruins ensued. You are not suppose to boulder above how many feet? Definitely happened. In fact I realized that people built civilizations long ago for them to be climbed on thousands of years later. That night was followed by more rock climbing (thanks to the super muscular girl here who can do inverted pushups and can pull me up around and over anything, this particular incident was around a rock ledge) and star gazing but I actually got to sleep out side which was wonderful. Then came what was one of the most intense hikes of my life, I thought it was the best hike of my life and it was for like a week it but more on that later. This starts off through the desert and unp and down rocks and dunes in the sun, which I though was bad and I was super tired by the first rest stop but really I had NO idea what was ahead of me. This is when we went down into a gorge only to have to climb up the sheer face of a mountain practically straight up...IN A DESERT. It was brutal I am not going to lie but the view over the mountains was gorgeous. And it was all worth it to come into Petra through the back and see the monastery ( the one in transformers, oh yeah I was there!) peak out over the mountains. It was beautiful, I think Elora and Ajanta caves has it beat as far as seeing structures carved out of the rocks but the rocks here are so beautiful. They are banded red, purple, yellow and brown in all sorts of different shapes and patterns I have never seen anything like it.
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non-member comment
wow...
That sounds crazy. When I come visit you, we're going there ;)