Deserted in the Desert

After visiting Petra, we headed to Wadi Rum, a desert made famous by Lawrence of Arabia.  While you can trek through the wadi, considering that it was summer and Stephanie freaked Brian out when she passed out in Myanmar/Burma because of the heat, we opted to tour the desert via 4x4 and then planned on spending the night in a Bedouin camp.

The tour was fantastic - we saw camels at their watering hole (did you know there are black camels?!), ran up a sand dune, and spotted ancient Thamudic "writing" on rock walls.  

A lizard sun bathing.

A mama camel and her baby.

Exploring an oasis.

Stick camels!

Or are they horses? Maybe donkeys?!

Brian atop the sand dune.

Nothing but desert for miles and miles.

A very cool rock formation.

Atop another very cool rock formation.

Brian playing football with some kids who were
also exploring Wadi Rum. They lasted about 5 minutes
before they had to take a break from the heat.

Everything was going great … until we finished our tour and got dropped off at the camp.  Our driver said that the boss would come by in a few hours and then he left.  Our tent had been closed up and was extremely hot so we went over to the main tent where we met Kellie, Kevin, and Stephanie from California.  They were there as volunteers in exchange for room & board (a great way to see the world on the cheap!) and told us that they had been dropped off the day before and hadn't seen anyone until we showed up.  And that's when we realized that we were probably going to be on our own.  We took stock of our supplies - the California crew had some pita bread and tomatoes and we had humus, dates, water, and candy - and then we whittled away the time reading, swapping stories about our adventures, and napping.  

Our sleeping quarters.

Brian lounging in the Bedouin equivalent of a living room.

Before we knew it, 12:30 became 19:30.  Once it was cool enough to go explore, our group set out to find a good spot to watch the sunset.  Mission accomplished.

Brian scoping out things.

Kellie's vantage point.

Only thing missing was ... nothing!

As we were perched up on the rocks saying good-bye to another day, we spotted a 4x4 heading toward our camp.  Kevin & Brian scampered down from our look-out - not quite as gracefully as billy goats but pretty close - and thankfully caught up with the vehicle before it drove off, taking our dinner with it!

It wasn't the boss, but a replacement.  Although he couldn't speak much English, he spoke enough to be able to teach us a game that involved leapfrogging stones to get them all in one person's pile.  We spent the rest of the evening by the fire playing the game and star-gazing.   In one hour, we saw 13 shooting stars, more than I'd seen in my entire life!  Unfortunately, our camera isn't high-tech enough to be able to capture the night sky, so you'll just have to trust us when we say it was the most incredible night sky we've ever seen. 

Playing with sticks and stones.

The next morning the boss finally appeared to take us back to the entrance of Wadi Rum where we could catch a ride to the bus depot in Aqaba.  While we didn't learn as much about Bedouin life as we were hoping since the boss deserted us, we were thankful to have made new friends, to have witnessed a lovely sunset, and to have fallen asleep under a dazzling blanket of stars. 

The Plums & the Cali Crew - Kellie, Kevin, and Stephanie.