Jordan - Wadi Rum

Jordan
Desert
Author

Oliver Eaton

Published

March 21, 2023

We were excited about visiting Wadi Rum, we had both heard so much about it from other tourists and online blogs. The hostel owner organised camp accommodation (which is more like glamping) for 30JOD each and a mini-bus for us to the Wadi Rum junction for 5JOD each ($10NZD), where a camp worker picked us up in a ute and drove us into the desert. On the way, we drove past the Wadi Rum visitor’s centre, avoiding it altogether, which was a bit confusing. Going through the visitor’s centre, and paying an entrance fee is the only way into the nature reserve. Arriving at the camp Trav deduced from his map that the camp was not situated within the nature reserve, he became a bit frustrated, we were under the impression that we would be in the reserve. On top of that, lunch had been served and came with a 15JOD price tag (hefty). Again, we thought food and water were included. They were not.

This set Trav off, I could hear the frustration in his voice and sense it in his demeanour, I, on the other hand, was just happy to be out in the desert. It is usually me who gets wound up in these situations.


Jeep Tour

A large group of middle-aged Welsh tourists arrived. They brought with them a real sense of fun! Lots of laughter and typical British banter lightened the mood. They got prepared for their Jeep tour, and we, assuming that we would be part of the same tour, got prepared also. Surprisingly, we were not organised to be riding in their jeeps. The confusion and ambiguous saga continues! In Arabia it feels like the mindset is so insular, convenience and efficient planning takes a back seat. Honestly, I think this is being driven by the culture of tipping. If more individual Jeep tours take place, more drivers receive a tip and essentially get “paid” for their work.

Our driver arrived soon after the Welsh left and motioned that our tour would start in forty-five minutes, both Trav & I feigned ignorance pushing for the tour to start at the instant, it was already 3.30pm and the sun was going to set. This won him over and the tour began (a small victory!).

Again, Trav watched his map and noticed we moving in the opposite direction to the nature reserve. I could feel the heat from his blood, boiling. I tried not to laugh at his frustration and coaxed him to simmer down. Our first stop was at a little tea hut which was stationed outside ancient drawings of camel & emu(?) on the side of a cliff face. Supposedly these drawings are around three thousand years old. Inside the tea hut, we were offered tea (which I reassured was free) and were satisfied with some local Bedouin music played on a one-stringed instrument, with goat skin stretched over a square frame. It kind of sounded like a raspey violin. For me, this was the highlight of the tour, especially when he sang. By no means was the musicianship “good”, but the authenticity could be felt and the moment will forever be etched in my memory.

The rest of the tour we saw interesting rock formations, sifted through the desert on a rickety-ass jeep that broke down once and watched the sunset from a massive rock that we climbed. It was quite an adventure.


Glamping

That evening we sat around the fire with other tourists at the site. The Welsh were nice and offered us a beer/wine. Chicken & Lamb for dinner was cooked underground in a traditional Bedouin way. Food on this trip was expensive, so I made the most of it and piled my plate sky-high, eating as much as possible. The lamb was so juicy, delicious!

We wanted to go hiking the next day so tried to organise a tour with the supposed camp owner. He quoted us 70JOD each, which is incredibly expensive so we forwent the idea.

Rock Scrambling

The next morning we woke around 9am, smashed back a huge breakfast and went on our own adventure, without the assistance of some expensive guide. Just outside our camping spot, we scrambled up two massive rocks, rock climbing in some places. The view from the top was incredible. All up this took us about an hour and a half. We made our way back to the camp and quickly snatched a ride back to the junction where we planned to get transportation to Petra somehow. This part was completely unplanned, and we were prepared to hitchhike there if we had to. A local approached us and organised a taxi for us to Petra, he was an interesting dude, bit of a snake in my opinion, but asked us to volunteer at his Wadi Rum campsite, which sounded very appealing. We just don’t have enough time in Jordan for that.


Wrap up

Our trip to Wadi Rum was a tad disappointing. Again, we were sold something that went against our expectations. This seems to often be the case when a tour is organised through a hostel, we’ve found it very hard to describe things to sales-people that go against the status quo, hence why we went through the hostel. In the future, we’ll probably try our hardest to overcome the language and price barriers of actual tour organisers to find ourselves in a situation that actually we desire to be in.