Whar-deee Rum

Day 42 Wadi Musa to Wadi Rum
Wadi Rum.

A tough ask for Wadi Rum as it comes straight after Petra. I fear that would set up most things for anti climax. However, the Rum has several things in its favour. There’ll be desert; there’ll be camels (‘I said no camels, that’s 5 camels, can’t you count?’ ‘Compensation for my brother in law’s car.’) There’ll be camping under stars. And there’ll be the peculiar way I’ve been saying Wadi Rum for weeks and weeks: drawn out in Anthony Quayle’s style (having left Petra, you now need to watch David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia-on as big as screen as possible). It is one of the most glorious settings in the movie and meant to be a real highlight of Jordan: unlike Aqaba, the Wadi Rum scenes are filmed in Wadi Rum. I hope my Petra hangover doesn’t take the edge off Wadi Rum, as I think it deserves much better.

I shan’t be sending my thoughts on Wadi Rum to the British Travel Writers’ Association; sometimes cliché isn’t so much a cliché, as a point, which has been nailed. Wadi Rum IS landscape writ large, landscape on a scale epic enough to wreck all judgement of distance. It may have hot spots marked on the tourist map, but it doesn’t have sights in the traditional way-the desert is the sight. More than anything you see, the desert is something you feel, something you experience-more being here than seeing here. There’s not a single original word there, BUT these are all thoughts that came to me while in Wadi Rum; thoughts I had of my own accord that others had had before. I didn’t go out with a checklist of preconceptions. So, I guess I’m saying my reaction is honest, but not groundbreaking.

It had been rush hour as we’d headed out of Rum village and a coachload’s worth of 4x4s were coming towards us. It was soon clear to me that the camel was the right choice for transportation: views develop rather than flash past, you can look around as you please, there’s no roof or fellow passenger to block your line of sight and you can even turn your camel round. Some of the 4x4s looked really cramped and on a camel it is quiet in the vastness.



Camel’s aren’t so fast, at least with me at the reins, so we didn’t travel a huge distance from Rum, but we barely saw anyone, despite often being able to see for miles.



My now pervasive uneasiness about any activity that involves the ‘use’ of animals wasn’t really assuaged; on day one I was regularly urged to ‘hit him’ to get a desired response and on day two my guide asked me if I’d ever eaten camel. Camels are big enough and obstinate enough to avoid terrible treatment, I think, but I get the sense that when they can no longer carry tourists, the Bedouin fire up the barbecue. I have to be careful, if I keep following a policy of not doing anything in which an animal may have been abused or distressed, the logical conclusion may involve giving up cheese. Still, I do wonder.

I’d met a couple of others on the bus who joined me for the first half of the day and this was our camel train.



Overall this seems to be a desert with quite a lot of vegetation.



It’s also quite mountainous-there’s a lot of climbing here. Combining all these elements and the variations in the sand colour results in the sort of epic, monumental and divers landscape that made David Lean want to make a 4 hour film on the desert.

Overall the weather wasn’t that kind in the desert: I had no sunsets, lots of cloud and probably only 3 or 4 hours of good sun in the middle of the first day. On day 2 I switched to woolly Benny headgear instead of day 1’s T.E. Lawrence effort. The disappointment is due to the need for sun to see this place at its best; I’m not so worried about my personal comfort.

Still, when we left Petra the visibility was shocking-as bad as when I’d driven away from the Dana Nature Reserve. Wadi Rum was therefore a lot better than Petra that day and I’d certainly had 3 wonderful days of weather in Petra, which I’m very grateful for. Given there was going to be some crappy weather, I’d rather have had it in the Rum rather than Petra.

Interesting animals camels: they’re very wilful. Not just with me, but with Abdullah my guide as well. I got the feeling they do largely what they want. This is especially true when it comes to eating and drinking-they move on when they’re ready. Reins or no reins, there’s no chance of a human pulling a camel up from a tasty bush if the camel wants to stay down there. I was also interested that they seem to prefer the drier, less tasty looking plants.

This is my camel, Biff



unless I’m way off, Biff was the bully in Back to the Future. This whole trip is in danger of becoming an 80’s movie tribute. Perhaps my dive instructor will be Monty Brewster and Clarence Beeks will drive me to Abu Simbel. Biff pads along serenely, looking around almost as much as me. When they do decide to break the silence, camels make a fearful racket: movie sound people must have used them for monsters. Luckily Biff and his brother are quiet at night-they kept me company in camp. The camp was rather good. Mohammed and Abdullah’s family used to live here. 2 sides of wall have been built around the natural protection. The roof and the other 2 walls are rock and there’s a gap through which I’ll be able to see the stars from bed.



I must have been very bad as I was in bed by 7.10, by which time it had been pitch dark for an hour. I read for a while (give me some credit) and although I heard the occasional rustling noise, I paid it no heed. Then about 20 mins after I turned off the torch, I heard some scurrying. In order to begin investigating, I sat straight up and essentially headed a mouse. It was pitch dark as the moon hadn’t yet cleared the mountains, so I couldn’t tell you if it was a goal or not.

As you’d expect I was a touch perturbed at the thought of flying rodents in my bedroom and was saddened that my career as a mouseball striker was unlikely to prove lucrative. Scrabbling around I located my torch and found no mouse, nor anything worse. At least this confirmed I’d failed to head it into the fire’s dying embers.

Looking around the camp in general, I saw what had happened. Round most of the rock walls lay a stone bench with cushions on, which was a foot or 2 above where I was sleeping by the fire’s final efforts. Mousey must have been running along the bench, hit my ski jacket, which caused the noise to make me sit up before he ran out of bench and flying through the air got nutted by me. It seems likely he was significantly more freaked than I was.

I looked for him as best I could, but to no avail. As the only way in was past the carpet hanging over the only doorway, which was a lot easier as entrance than exit, I figured there was little chance my dazed new friend wasn’t still inside. That was unless mousey could climb over the wall of the sides that weren’t cave: I decided not to think about that possibility too much.

Short on options, I put on a hat so the little one couldn’t steal the gold and turned the light off again. This wasn’t brilliant preparation for going to sleep; I don’t think I heard anything, rather it was paranoia turned the torch back on. Freakishly, there he was, about 6 feet away, where dinner had been.

It wasn’t a rat. It may have been any of a mouse/hamster/gerbil. With a body about the size of my fist, it was fluffy, a darkish, golden yellow with massive eyes and a fairly thick tail. It sorted of hopped away at first; maybe it’s Aussie-a roo mouse? I found I could use the torch to move him around-it was very Jedi as the beam chased him. This started as an accidental discovery, which I found intriguing, but with no cogent plan he eventually dove for cover and I lost him.

When I turned the torch off this time, I had it worked out. It seemed only seconds later when the light was back on, he’d returned to the same spot and I sprang into action. I grabbed the drum Mohammed had earlier been using to play with the echo, planning to trap the roo mouse underneath it. It was soon apparent that this was a stupid idea as the drum wasn’t wide enough and I never going to sufficiently to use it.

A quick change of approach was called for: I decided to use the torch to force him out the door. This required a high level of skill with the light sabre; fortunately I am a registered Jedi (2001 census). At one point I nearly chased him into my bed, but I soon gained the upper hand and him at the carpet in the doorway. He hesitated and sweetly he didn’t want to leave me. Focussed on my goal and unemotional, I thrust my torch toward him and he was gone. Taking no chances, I lifted up the carpet and caught him lingering outside: I forced mine enemy into the desert night and secured the carpet with the drum.

I slept on the bench after that and when it started pouring with rain, I did feel a bit guilty.

Day 43 Wadi Rum
Day 2 showed that I had been wise to decide against getting a camel trip all the way to Aqaba. I was rather sore and the weather was lousy. It was still enjoyable, but apart from watching the camel’s morning routine



I didn’t feel it added much to the previous day. This feeling was doubtless increased by losing Abdullah as my guide. We’d got on well the previous day, but he had to go to school. My new guy seemed to want to get it over with as quickly as possible and I had some saddle problems.

Not what you think.

Coming down a slight incline, I started slipping forwards, then further forward. Just as it was getting silly we stopped.

I was sent off to explore a gorge and he set to work on the saddle. He did a crap job. As the camel got up, the saddle lurched forward even more alarmingly than before. As my guide genius had tied my camel to Biff (he’s had Biff off me too) and he was stood behind me, I was struggling to find somewhere to jump to. I was determined to bale, otherwise gravity or the camel, who sounded in discomfort, was going to have me off. I got myself into a position where I could step onto Biff’s saddle-sensible Biff was still seated. I managed this in a controlled manner and was quite pleased as I took a gentle backward step to get onto the ground…..only to trip over the local who had silently rushed over intent on catching me. I was probably a touch ungrateful as his well intentioned efforts merely resulting in me landing on my arse. Then he set about sorting the saddle out and seemed to be telling my guide off.

Tip to guides who want tips: apologise when you screw up. His English wasn’t great, but I’m pretty sure he blamed the camel. We were back in the village early afternoon, so I went for a hike, which turned into an aimless ramble in the desert. At least it stopped me seizing up.

A few more pictures.





Today is half way day: day 43 of 86. I was a little sad to reflect that the only time my shorts and sandals have left my bag was when I repacked it in Petra.

I stayed at Difallah’s house tonight: technically he’s been my guide, in practice his sons have done the work. He decided to entertain my showing me a selection of TV channels. It was a real culture clash, as he was quite proud as I searched for something nice to say. On Camel TV a large number of camels move around the desert, while a man sings a capella over the top. The camerawork was all over the show-zoom seemed to take the camera bod by surprise. Then we had a televised version of what I understood to be some kind of traditional Bedouin debating, which Difallah also likened to a disco. With just men of course (sometimes the Middle East is more the Blue Oyster East). One guy does some of that half chanting/singing thing that comes through the mosque tannoys and sounds so off key to (these) Western ears: the posse then chant this repeatedly until someone comes up with a decent retort, at which stage the posse change to chanting the new line. The looks on the debaters faces somehow made me think they were exchanging playground insults. And the disco? Well amongst all the chanting, the posse clap and try to jump up and down on the spot in unison. Those who get really taken away, run off and freestyle. The only way I can describe this is by saying they reminded me of over earnest folk, who’d thought too much about their dancing in footage of the 50’s. Sorry. From what Difallah just said I think we’re now watching Pop Idol, but it doesn’t look right. Nope, I think it’s Rant Idol: it seems someone comes on and delivers a polemic and then the audience vote on it. There’s some sort of telephone vote too.

I’m really not sneering, but I was quite bemused.

My second and last Jordanian bus tomorrow and a real lie in: ex Petra was 6.10, this is only 7.00 to Aqaba. You’d think the only bus of the day would be a touch kinder.

And in Aqaba? I shall be getting certified. At last.