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Published: November 25th 2022
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Today is some serious driving, as it takes about 4.5 hours to get down to the south of Jordan to Wadi Rum, just north of the Red Sea. I was back on driving duty, and the Dead Sea Highway (1 lane each way so not a big one) was pretty good. We turned off to head over the mountains toward the Desert Highway and did some quite major up hills and switch backs on what we would consider a backroad.
I wanted to stop by Karak Castle, which is on the way and was about 1.5 hours, so pretty easy. Unfortunately, I had put in Karak (not the castle) which took us in to the little town with lots of little alleys. Not bright on my part. We redid and still had to go through some very small alleys, dodging locals and finally found the parking lot. I only hit one orange cone in the process.
Karak Castle was built in the 1100’s and is atop a very large mountain, with views in all directions. Stone archways everywhere and ancient ruins littered across the massive complex. We explored the various massive rooms and viewed the amazing countryside from the
walkways.
It was time to head towards Wadi Rum and get there before the sun started to set. Luckily getting out of Karak was much easier then getting up there, and soon we were back on the semi-decent road. One thing we have learned is they have road humps everywhere, some are marked, while most aren’t. A focus is required to not go flying over and destroy the car. In addition, potholes are also frequent, so between those and the humps, there is no relaxing.
After some interesting routes, we finally made it to the Desert Highway, which seemed like a super highway after the past 2 hours of driving. Very nicely paved, 2 lanes each direction…until it wasn’t. After about 1.5 hours of a great road, we started to get the potholes, along with a washboard surface and then went down to 1 lane, which was no fun with the large trucks. We bounced along for a good 30 miles until the road turned decent again.
We arrived at the Memories parking lot, just inside the Wadi Rum border. We parked, checked in, unloaded our stuff and took the pickup truck (bags went inside, we sat
in the bed on benches) and headed into the desert. After about 10 mins we pulled into our camp, with bubble domes and tents in the otherworldly terrain.
We were shown our two room “tent”, with sitting area, bedroom and large bathroom all decked out in fancy furnishings. We went out to explore and Ken hiked up a path that looked a bit to rocky for me, so I stayed below to take pics. I found the coffee shop, built into the rocks with very ornate decorations.
Ken came back down and we explore the area bit more, watched the sunset over the soft red sand and massive craggy mountains, before relaxing with a lemon mint beverage in the coffee area. While there, a guy came over and asked if we would like to see the meat for dinner being pulled from underground. Ok you have us intrigued, so we headed outside and watched while he opened a underground container and pulled up three levels of meat (chicken and lamb) that had been cooking all afternoon. It smelled amazing, but we had to wait until dinner to taste it.
Soon it was time to go to dinner
in the large white dome, and we had the choice of extremely fresh, tasty salads and of course, the chicken/lamb we saw hauled from the ground. And, it tasted as good as it smelled and looked.
After dinner, it was time for bed, with silence and darkness a nice change from everyday life.
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