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Wadi Rum was made famous by TE Lawrence/Lawrence of Arabia. He is believed to have lived in this house. Usually when you think of a wadi it's a riverbed which is fairly linear, perhaps with a few houses along it or Bedouin tents and plenty of rough stones and some water depending on the season. Wadi Rum is instead a vast expanse of red sand with frequent, imposing sandstone and magma landforms rising up to a significant height straight out of the landscape.
There's not much to describe in words, it's easier just to check out the photos. Make sure you check them out, there are some amazing photospheres of the desert! This is a real advert for Google+! :-)
A word about the locals - the Bedouin who greeted me at the gate were very pushy. Admittedly it was around closing time so I guess they wanted to close a deal for giving a tour the next day. I really wasn't up for this though as I was just focused on ensuring I had a place to sleep for the night and there was only one place for that as far as I was concerned - Wadi Rum Resthouse. I just wanted to go there and finalise that before thinking about anything else and a bunch of Bedouins literally obstructing me as I walked from the car to reception to get my entrance pass really pissed me off.
Despite the confrontation at the gate things got better after I'd settled in at the resthouse (a tent for JD5!!). I sat down in a small cafe next door and met a couple of Romanian rock climbers here to scale the cliffs. I didn't know much about Wadi Rum but learnt that night that there is a long history of climbing there and they had a guide book by another westerner who had made rock climbing here famous internationally. As I was chatting with them a few Bedouins turned up and joined me at my table. One of them knew the author of the book and had a job himself helping people out on guided climbs. Everyone it seemed had a tourism job, understandably. I tried to get information out of the Bedouins about whether I was getting screwed over being offered a day tour of the area for JD80 but they of course didn't say anything. The Romanians said they shared a car amongst 3 and paid JD25 each so that was a good guide for how much. I ended up getting the full tour for JD60 - but then had to cut it two hours short (there was a big log climb up to a particularly impressive free standing archway) as I needed to get my ass to Petra.
It was nice just to sit, relax and chat with strangers as they came by... note the contrast with my response to staying at Crowne Plaza! It was nice to have a casual chat about what the local lads did whilst a bunch of them sat around seemingly just to catch up amongst themselves before heading in for the night. I felt like I was a traveller finally and really wish I'd had the time to hang out here for a week and learn to do some basic rock climbing. Wadi Rum is definitely a place I'd like to come back to... as I've said to a few people this Jordan trip was a bit of a reccy in some ways, just to see where is worthwhile spending more time.
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