3 days in jordan

Discovering the desert of Wadi Rum and the ancient city of Petra

By Rod Loboz

March 3^rd, 2024

We left Tel Aviv, Israel at 6 a.m. In the darkness of the morning, it was pouring down heavy as we made our way to the mini-bus. I slept most of the drive to the border with Jordan. We went through the Israeli side and met Mahdi, our Jordanian guide, who explained the immigration procedure. We waited for a little while, got our passports stamped, exchanged money and boarded another coach.

Our first stop was in the city of Jerash to visit the ruins of the Roman city of Gerasa. We went through the Archway of Hadrian, the gateway to the city and ambled into an area where gladiator fights and chariot races were held. We walked through the ample oval forum into a colonnaded street. Mahdi explained various interesting details about the city, such as the roads being paved at an angle due to the chariots and carts, and how higher columns signalled important buildings.

I was tired and decided to go back to the mark and wait for the group to finish the tour. I bought some water and sat waiting. The coach driver saw me and motion me to join him. There was a police officer sitting at the table. None of them spoke English, but I was able to understand that the police officer would be joining us on the bus the whole time we would be in Jordan. I asked if this was common policy, and they explained only if there were certain nationalities on the tour groups, such as Americans and Australians.

THE Seven Wonders Bedouin Camp

We arrived at the Seven Wonders Bedouin camp at nightfall. The camp lies in the mountains near Wadi Musa, the closest town to the archeological site of Petra. We sat down to eat in the dining room before being shown to our tents. It gets cold in the night and everybody would hang out in the lounge tent, the only place with Wi-Fi and charging stations. There was a firewood stove in the middle of the tent and an assorted mix of tourists smoked from hookahs, read or chatted cheerfully. It was a delightful social place.

wadi rum desert

Wadi Rum, the Valley of Sand, also known as the Valley of the Moon, is a desert wilderness in southern Jordan. Its breathtaking and unique landscape has been used as the setting for many a movie, including classic Lawrence of Arabia and the more recent Rogue One (Star Wars) and The Martian, due to its striking resemblance to the red landscape of Mars.

We hopped onto the back of pickup truck and off-road vehicles for a tour of Wadi Rum. The views are striking and otherworldly. In ancient times, the caravans would take 9 to 12 days to cross this desert. We stopped and climbed to the top of a hill on foot for photos. Then we drove to a place which was used in ancient times as a caravan station for shelter during the night. There were graffiti on a rock surface, painting of camels, people and guards made by those ancient travellers.

Some of us made our way to the next stop on Camels. It's a slow and not very comfortable ride and I suppose they were mostly valued to transport goods. We dismounted at the entrance of a spectacular deep cleft between two cliffs, where tea was served inside a bedouin tent with a fire inside. We resumed the tour on the back of the off-road vehicles and stopped at another camp for lunch.

THE ANCIENT CITY OF PETRA

Voted as one of the New7Wonders of the World, Petra is the most visited site in Jordan. Inhabited since as early as 9,000 BC, it was established as the capital of the Nabatean Kingdom in the 4th century BC. Being surrounded by mountains, Petra is a natural fortress and the Nabateans were super masters in water management, building a complex system of waterways and reservoirs to survive times of draught. They also employed Greek architects in the construction of their wonderful temples and toms, carved out of sandstone rock faces.

The entrance to the city is made through a long gorge called the Siq (al-Sīq, literally 'the Shaft'), which leads to the Al-Khazneh ("The Treasury" in Arabic), the most magnificent temple in the ancient Arab Nabatean Kingdom city of Petra. The Treasury was featured in the Indiana Jones film The Last Crusade and has lived in my imagination ever since.

I felt like Indiana Jones, going up on mountain trails and exploring the ruins and caves built by the Nabateans thousands of years ago. We went up mountain steps to the High Place of Sacrifice. It was surprisingly absent of tourists, perhaps due to the hard climb necessary to reach it. It afforded magnificent views from the top. We then followed a route down and around the mountain were there were only a handful of us. A puppy and a dog followed us all the way through. There was a feeling of quiet and untouched exploration, as we passed by narrow valleys with temples, tombs carved out of rocks and met bedouins, until we circled our way back to the main sites filled with tourists.