Advertisement
After leaving the imposing site of Petra, we got back on our bus and traveled to Wadi-Rum. It is a journey to another world. A desert of breathtaking scenery with uniquely shaped massive mountains. It is a silent, empty place, timeless and starkly beautiful…albeit quite a dusty trip.
After entering the visitor’s center, we climbed onto 4x4’s to explore Wadi-Rum. Our first glimpse of the Wadi (the Arabic word for valley), we saw the towering “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”. It is a mountain at the entrance to the Wadi which was the inspiration for T.E. Lawrence’s book of the same name. During WWI, Wadi-Rum was the headquarters for Prince Feisal bin Al-Hussein and T.E. Lawrence in their fight for the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. It was this setting that inspired the film, “Lawrence of Arabia”.
The mountains in this magnificent desert are towering mammoths of sheer granite foundations topped by sandstone ridges...some close to 1,000 ft. high. Their domes have been worn smooth by the desert winds. Archeologists are certain that Wadi-Rum was inhabited in prehistoric periods mainly between the 8
th and 6
th centuries B.C. Fresh water springs made this valley a meeting center for travelers heading
towards Syria and Palestine. As we traveled in our dusty open 4x4’s, we could see the importance of fresh water.
We traveled quite a ways into Wadi-Rum before stopping to take in the breathtaking scenery. The colors of rock and sand were beautiful. One of our favorite people on the trip was a six year old boy named Daniel. The picture of the child climbing the red sand dune is of Daniel. The friends on our 4x4 were Tom and Sarah and Sue from Vancouver. We climbed back on our open-air jeep and drove to a Bedouin camp for dinner. As we drove up to the camp, we saw many brightly colored rugs and numerous tents. We got settled in our tent and sat on a cushion with a low table. Our dinner was lamb and chicken prepared underground in an iron oven.
After dinner, the Bedouins played music, sang and danced for us. Many fellow travelers were enticed to join in the dances and Maritza and Daniel did the best dances with the sword. Surely a night to remember forever!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.056s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 16; qc: 21; dbt: 0.0201s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
