I know this all happened like a year ago, but I'm slow okay? Not that kinda slow, assholes. My writing job has taken up all my extra time. Luckily I've scaled back my workload now, so I have time to catch up on these. Believe me, they're piling up. It also helps that I'm on a train between Edinburgh and Leeds (via Durham), and I usually get the most travel writing done...when I'm traveling. Odd how that works.
Side note - I originally wrote these as Facebook notes, so that's where all the pics are. It's a huge pain in the ass to flip them onto here, so you're just gonna have to live without them. Unless you're my Facebook friend. Then you probably don't care.
Anyway, I left off long ago at the point (see part 4) that our ride showed up take into the desert. Specifically, Wadi Rum. First off, Jess needed Jordanian Dinars, so we stopped in the border town of Aqaba. What we did see of it was really nice and modern. Its a resort town as well due to it proximity to the Red Sea, so I probably shouldn't have been surprised. But I was. So there.
After the brief stop, we headed off to the Wadi Rum visitors center, which looked pretty cool. It was up on a hill at the edge of the desert, with a couple of crazy rock formations. We paid our fees, and let's just say we weren't in Kansas (or civilization) anymore. We were directed to a ratty truck by our fully decked out Bedouin, and told to climb in the back. There were two other people in the back already: an English dude and an Asian guy. I took my seat, cross-legged on a spare tire, and we began the crazy journey into the legit desert. And we got a pretty huge non-desert related surprise pretty much right away.
The Asian dude saw my hat and said 'Are you Canadian?' in a clear-as-day Canadian accent. Whoa. 'Yeah, were from Vancouver.' 'Dude, I'm from Richmond!' Nuts. His name was Aaron, and he was studying Arabic in Amman, the capital of Jordan. His English buddy Peter (the other guy) had never been to Jordan before so he was showing him around. Aaron had already been to Wadi Rum before, so he ended up being a big help for some of it. And came in especially handy later.
The desert landscape got crazy pretty quickly. There were loads of tiretracks going every which way, and no road. It started out pretty barren, but soon we were amongst crazy rock formations and outcroppings. Jess and I were pretty much in awe of everything immediately. We were also cold as hell, because the wind was nuts. I had to take my hat off pretty much immediately so it wouldn't blow away.
After probably 20-25 minutes of passing jeeps, rocks, and the occasional camel, we arrived at our camp. Our driver, who ended up getting dubbed Uncle Mo, didn't speak any English and Obeid (guy who I arranged the trip with) wasn't even there. In fact, we never saw him. Instead we were greeted by his son Nail, who spoke good English and turned out to be pretty hilarious. The layout of the camp was pretty simple. There were two main tents, both probably 60-70 feet long any probably seven feet high. One was where the family lived, the other was sort of like the living area. It had carpets all over, a few tables, a small fire pit, and stuff to lean against when sitting down. On the floor. The rest of the camp had a few 20 by 20 tents spaced out up the hill a bit, and a bathroom. With modern plumbing. Odd, I know.
We were invited into the main tent, where we met some Americans that were just about to depart. We BS'ed with them about the desert and stuff, and they're the ones that actually gave Mohammed his nickname. He sat with us and served tea, which I had never actually tried before in my life before that. And it was AMAZING. According to Jess its just tea leaves and a shitload of sugar, but it was awesome. He made it in the baby fire pit, and served it in these tiny cups that were probably only 2-3 ounces. I think I had about 7 cups in a half hour. Hey I'm a pig, leave me alone.
We dropped off our bags in our tent (walking uphill in sand blows) then headed out for our jeep tour with Mo. Aaron didn't come because he had done it before, so it was just me, Bitch and Peter. Peter turned out to be a pretty strange guy, but nice enough. Jess and I were trying to figure out how Aaron and him were friends, since he was easily 30 years older and walked with a cane. He kept seeing animal shapes in the clouds and asking me and Jess about them, which confused the shit out of us. 'Look, its a raptah!' Really? A dinosaur? No govna, its a fucking cloud.
I was planted back on my spare tire, where I sat cross-legged (Indian style) for the whole 3.5 hours, other than the few times we got out to inspect stuff. A French family that had arrived in camp was in the jeep behind us, driven by another dude we never saw again (and didn't speak English anyway). The trip was absolutely insane and amazing though. We'd drive through ridiculous landscapes that were constantly changing, then stop for a minute where uncle Mo would stick his head out the drivers side window, point at something, then say something unintelligible. Turns out he was saying the names of rocks and places (EVERYTHING in the desert has a name) but we didn't figure out what the hell he was on about till we were almost done. Oops.
Huge rock cliffs, hundreds of meters high (complete with rock climbers), all in different shades of red, orange and brown. Due to erosion, the same rock formation would change colors two or three times as you looked up. It was all pretty ridiculous. After coming across a gigantic circular rock on top of a tiny one that looked just like Stewie...
So cool.
I was officially hooked. Between rock bridges, a desert store surrounded by angry camels, and the haunting quiet of the desert...I was pretty sure that this was the coolest place I would ever see. Jess agreed. Peter would have too, if he would have stopped seeing wildebeests and tortoises in the clouds for 30 seconds. What the fuck?
Following the epic desert sunset we got back to camp, and it was dinner time. They cook their food in this metal contraption that's buried under the sand. We didn't know that though, so when Nail went to dig it out, he asked us to help and said we needed to dig up his grandfather and move his body. Obviously we didn't believe him, but it was still pretty fuckin' funny to find dinner down there instead. After chowing down, Uncle Mo brought over his little daughters, probably five or six, who danced around and played a tamborine thinger while Nail played a cool improvised drum and we drank tea. The girls were super cute, and it was all pretty entertaining. The funniest part was Nail constantly responding to his vibrating cell phone and texting people. "The modern bedouin," the Frenchman said. We laughed.
The next morning was ominous. The sky was angry, completely unlike anything I expected in the desert. It was dark, cold, and even rained briefly. We had breakfast and headed back to the visitor's center, thoroughly impressed with the entire experience. And it only got better from there, in many ways.
Check back in October 2013 when I write the next chapter!
Side note - I originally wrote these as Facebook notes, so that's where all the pics are. It's a huge pain in the ass to flip them onto here, so you're just gonna have to live without them. Unless you're my Facebook friend. Then you probably don't care.
Anyway, I left off long ago at the point (see part 4) that our ride showed up take into the desert. Specifically, Wadi Rum. First off, Jess needed Jordanian Dinars, so we stopped in the border town of Aqaba. What we did see of it was really nice and modern. Its a resort town as well due to it proximity to the Red Sea, so I probably shouldn't have been surprised. But I was. So there.
After the brief stop, we headed off to the Wadi Rum visitors center, which looked pretty cool. It was up on a hill at the edge of the desert, with a couple of crazy rock formations. We paid our fees, and let's just say we weren't in Kansas (or civilization) anymore. We were directed to a ratty truck by our fully decked out Bedouin, and told to climb in the back. There were two other people in the back already: an English dude and an Asian guy. I took my seat, cross-legged on a spare tire, and we began the crazy journey into the legit desert. And we got a pretty huge non-desert related surprise pretty much right away.
The Asian dude saw my hat and said 'Are you Canadian?' in a clear-as-day Canadian accent. Whoa. 'Yeah, were from Vancouver.' 'Dude, I'm from Richmond!' Nuts. His name was Aaron, and he was studying Arabic in Amman, the capital of Jordan. His English buddy Peter (the other guy) had never been to Jordan before so he was showing him around. Aaron had already been to Wadi Rum before, so he ended up being a big help for some of it. And came in especially handy later.
The desert landscape got crazy pretty quickly. There were loads of tiretracks going every which way, and no road. It started out pretty barren, but soon we were amongst crazy rock formations and outcroppings. Jess and I were pretty much in awe of everything immediately. We were also cold as hell, because the wind was nuts. I had to take my hat off pretty much immediately so it wouldn't blow away.
After probably 20-25 minutes of passing jeeps, rocks, and the occasional camel, we arrived at our camp. Our driver, who ended up getting dubbed Uncle Mo, didn't speak any English and Obeid (guy who I arranged the trip with) wasn't even there. In fact, we never saw him. Instead we were greeted by his son Nail, who spoke good English and turned out to be pretty hilarious. The layout of the camp was pretty simple. There were two main tents, both probably 60-70 feet long any probably seven feet high. One was where the family lived, the other was sort of like the living area. It had carpets all over, a few tables, a small fire pit, and stuff to lean against when sitting down. On the floor. The rest of the camp had a few 20 by 20 tents spaced out up the hill a bit, and a bathroom. With modern plumbing. Odd, I know.
We were invited into the main tent, where we met some Americans that were just about to depart. We BS'ed with them about the desert and stuff, and they're the ones that actually gave Mohammed his nickname. He sat with us and served tea, which I had never actually tried before in my life before that. And it was AMAZING. According to Jess its just tea leaves and a shitload of sugar, but it was awesome. He made it in the baby fire pit, and served it in these tiny cups that were probably only 2-3 ounces. I think I had about 7 cups in a half hour. Hey I'm a pig, leave me alone.
We dropped off our bags in our tent (walking uphill in sand blows) then headed out for our jeep tour with Mo. Aaron didn't come because he had done it before, so it was just me, Bitch and Peter. Peter turned out to be a pretty strange guy, but nice enough. Jess and I were trying to figure out how Aaron and him were friends, since he was easily 30 years older and walked with a cane. He kept seeing animal shapes in the clouds and asking me and Jess about them, which confused the shit out of us. 'Look, its a raptah!' Really? A dinosaur? No govna, its a fucking cloud.
I was planted back on my spare tire, where I sat cross-legged (Indian style) for the whole 3.5 hours, other than the few times we got out to inspect stuff. A French family that had arrived in camp was in the jeep behind us, driven by another dude we never saw again (and didn't speak English anyway). The trip was absolutely insane and amazing though. We'd drive through ridiculous landscapes that were constantly changing, then stop for a minute where uncle Mo would stick his head out the drivers side window, point at something, then say something unintelligible. Turns out he was saying the names of rocks and places (EVERYTHING in the desert has a name) but we didn't figure out what the hell he was on about till we were almost done. Oops.
Huge rock cliffs, hundreds of meters high (complete with rock climbers), all in different shades of red, orange and brown. Due to erosion, the same rock formation would change colors two or three times as you looked up. It was all pretty ridiculous. After coming across a gigantic circular rock on top of a tiny one that looked just like Stewie...
So cool.
I was officially hooked. Between rock bridges, a desert store surrounded by angry camels, and the haunting quiet of the desert...I was pretty sure that this was the coolest place I would ever see. Jess agreed. Peter would have too, if he would have stopped seeing wildebeests and tortoises in the clouds for 30 seconds. What the fuck?
Following the epic desert sunset we got back to camp, and it was dinner time. They cook their food in this metal contraption that's buried under the sand. We didn't know that though, so when Nail went to dig it out, he asked us to help and said we needed to dig up his grandfather and move his body. Obviously we didn't believe him, but it was still pretty fuckin' funny to find dinner down there instead. After chowing down, Uncle Mo brought over his little daughters, probably five or six, who danced around and played a tamborine thinger while Nail played a cool improvised drum and we drank tea. The girls were super cute, and it was all pretty entertaining. The funniest part was Nail constantly responding to his vibrating cell phone and texting people. "The modern bedouin," the Frenchman said. We laughed.
The next morning was ominous. The sky was angry, completely unlike anything I expected in the desert. It was dark, cold, and even rained briefly. We had breakfast and headed back to the visitor's center, thoroughly impressed with the entire experience. And it only got better from there, in many ways.
Check back in October 2013 when I write the next chapter!
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