Wadi Rum Desert- Jordan

Even with all of the different countries on our itinerary, Jordan was one of the places I was most excited to visit. Unfortunately, our last night in Petra was when we stayed up all night trying to book flights home. Knowing we had a mere 48 hours left in the country, we accelerated our plans so we could still make it to Wadi Rum and let the kids ride camels in the desert. We left Petra a day early to venture to the southern part of Jordan.

Wadi Rum

As Mike mentioned in his post, it was rainy and windy while we were in Petra. This made for a very slow and challenging drive south through the mountainous terrain. The fog was extremely thick and the roads were partially washed out. We, however, were determined to push through so we took our time on the switchback roads and, 2 hours of focus later, emerged to much lower altitude and somewhat clearer skies.

Thick fog on treacherous roads. We took it SLOWLY!!

Wadi Rum is known as one of the world's greatest deserts. It is 750 square kilometers and has archaeological remains and inscriptions demonstrating that humans of different cultures inhabited the land as far back as 12 000 years ago. Many movies, such as Lawrence of Arabia, Transformers and the Martian, have been filmed in this vast expanse of red sand.

The approach was stunning and grandiose. It reminded us a lot of Utah and Arizona.

Coming out of the fog and out of the mountains

A rainy day in the desert

We saw very few cars on the road

Upon arrival to the visitor's centre, we found many tour operators hanging out and chatting as there were very few tourists around. We quickly found a kind Bedouin man willing to take us on an condensed desert 4WD tour, leaving us enough time to drive north again before dark.

Let's do this!

Jeeps and pickup trucks have more or less replaced camels and are the main means of transport in the desert these days. We set off in a truck to visit the Rum Village, a small settlement at the edge of the desert.

It had rained the night before and the villagers were energized by the rare sightings of waterfalls rushing down the cliff faces. Wadi Rum gets less than 3 days of rain every year! Grown men were doing "rain dances" and shooting pistols into the air. Quite a sight to behold!

Rum Village

We left the last bit of civilization and headed deeper into the desert. We visited Lawrence's Spring (where clean drinking water can be had), Khazali Canyon, sand dunes and, the Burdah and Um Frouth Rock Bridges.