Desert, driving and drivel

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Geo: 31.9494, 35.9329

We started this morning from Petra and drove about one hour to Wadi Rum. This is a national park in the middle of the desert. The scenery is spectacular. We transferred to a 4 wheel drive (which had seen better days) and headed into the sand amongst the rocky mountains. Wadi Rum means Valley of the High Mountains and it is certainly that. There are many high sandstone mountains and the ground is all red sand. We climbed up one of the sand dunes and then stopped at a Bedouin camp for hot tea. In this area Lawrence of Arabia was active in 1917 during the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. We saw his face carved on a rock near the Bedouin stopping place. We spent about 90 minutes driving through the sand, a bumpy ride in places.
We then drove to Amman. This took about 3 hours, including stopping for lunch. We are now in the Amman Cham Palace Hotel. The rooms are OK but the service is very poor. Our room is on the 7th floor, the only non-smoking one. There was no service directory in the room and when I enquired about city maps or brochures about what's on in Amman or a list of restaurants, the receptionist looked at me blankly. We arrived here at 3pm and wanted to do some exploring but we feel rather trapped Her advice was to get a taxi and tell the driver where you want to go but that is difficult when you don't know where you want to go. We will have to eat here tonight and we have a day tour tomorrow. Perhaps then we can orient ourselves!

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Comments

[Hotel Travelia]

Great !