Jordan Part III - Wadi Rum

I have to admit I wasn't too thrilled when Hubby said that we were going to spend a couple of days in the desert during our trip in Jordan. I'm a city girl. Always been, always will be. I can take nature a bit. Beaches and mountains are cute and pretty a couple of hours but not really my thing.

But the desert??? It's just a vast emptiness filled with sand. What's there to see? What's there to do? How the heck can that be interesting? I asked these questions to Hubby and he just looked at me kinda funny.

End of the road, beginning of the desert

So when we arrived to Rum, the tiny village that is the gate to the massive Wadi Rum desert I was already regretting the decision. I looked with dread at the spot where the concrete road literally ends and the desert sand begins. We were picked up by our guide Ajmed who loaded us up in a jeep older that our old 79 camper van. While he drove us through the bumpy sand dunes and into the big scary nothingness ahead he explained to us that the entire Rum village is a Bedouin cooperative and all trecks and trips into the dessert are only allowed in the company of a Bedouin guide from Rum. This is both to make sure that no one gets lost inside the park (the Bedouins know the desert like the back of their palm) and to make sure that the park is preserved and respected by all. Greaat....

Our first stop was Lawrence's Spring. Ajmed explained that this is supposed to be the spiring of water from which Lawrence of Arabia drank during his travels through the desert. I was expecting to see a sort of oasis, with a puddle of water springing out from the sand. In reality, the spring sprouts from high up in the mountains. Rock mountains. I wasn't expecting rock mountains in the desert. Hubby and the others made their way towards the bottom of the mountain and started to climb up. I hesitently followed suit.

The view from Lawrence's Spring (post climb)

Contrary to what I had though, Wadi Rum is not just a vast emptiness filled with sand, but in fact a humongous rock mountain park, filled with dunes and hills and sand and immense rock formations and caves and canyons, all in different shades of yellow and red and brown.

I did ok climbing Lawrence's Spring on the way up but it took me considerably more time than the others to climb back down. I kept having panic attacks and was convinced my my new grip hiking boots actually had come with a factory defect and I was going to slip and plunge to my death below. But I made it down and sighed in relief. After all, it was over and there was no way climbing was going to be the recurrent theme of the day - not when you're supposed to be trekking in the desert

But it soon became evident that it was exactly going to be recurrent theme of the day.

The next stop Ajmed took us to was an immense sand dune mountain topped by another humungous rock. He explained that the sand dune was the accumulated result of the mountain in front slowly disentegrating to dust after being hit for centuries by the dessert wind. I smugly made my way up the sand dune thinking that the view from there was the purpose of the climb, but when I reached the top, the others just passed me and kept climbing upwards. Up the rock mountain! This one was way higher than Lawrence's spring (adding in the hight of the sand dune we were considerably high up in the sky) and the rock was much steeper and vertical. Despite Hubby's protests I told the others to go ahead without me.

The view from atop the sand dune (and only half way up!)

While I sat there atop the sand dune waiting for the others to come back down I told myself I didn't care that I hadn't gone up. I wasn't a lunatic enough to risk my life just to show off in front of the others. I mean, yeah, ok, there was the girl that had gone up in sandals and a flowing skirt but I wasn't about to kill myself just for that.

Hubby atop the smooth mountain

I refused to go up another slightly lower mountain a few hours later, this time because the blasted thing was shaped like an egg and smooth as silk. No matter how much Hubby pleaded, begged and insisted that our hiking boots were specifically made to walk on these surfaces I didn't budge and my feet were kept firmly attached to the ground.

I was feeling quite grumpy when Ajmed parked the jeep in front of yet another huge rock in the early dusk. The others didn't even bother trying to talk me into following them. As I watched them carefully climb up the rocky walls, gripping the nooks and cracks, pressing themselves against the narrow paths on their way up I asked myself what really was preventing me from going up. Was it really because I was afraid my boots were defective? Was it really because it looked too hard? I looked at the top of the mountain to the rock bridge that connected two rocks and admitted to myself that it would be so cool to be able to reach that place. To stand atop a natural rock bridge in the middle of the desert and look out into the setting sun. I asked myself when again would I have the opportunity to be in this place, in this instant in time faced with this choice: to push myself to dare to try the impossible or stay with my feet firmly upon the ground but eyes longly looking up with envy and want.

I told myself I could do it. I trusted my hiking boots. I trusted my hands and arms to safely keep me griped to the rock wall. I trusted my legs and knees to not take a false step and carry me up and down in one piece.

And most of all, I trusted myself to never forgive me if I didn't go up the damn thing.

I shoved my camera in Ajmed's hands and gritting my teeth asked him to capture the moment once I was up.

And he did.

Fned & Hubby atop a mountain

Fned.