A Long Weekend in Jordan – Travelogue Day 1
Wadi Rum and Sleeping in a Dome
Hello and welcome to my Jordan travel diary. This is day 1.
I was fortunate enough to spend a long weekend in Jordan. I hope you enjoy peeking into my travel journal.
Quite some time ago, I looked up when the next public holiday in the UAE would be. I saw it was in December for National Day. I confirmed in the work’s system, and to my delight, I saw two days blocked out for public holidays. That was it, I thought. It was time to look for a cheap flight.
A lot of other people had the same idea because the prices to close destinations were already expensive. But I wasn’t giving up easily, so I kept looking and found some well-priced flights to Jordan. I hadn’t looked there first because I’ve already been there, and I would have liked to have visited a place I hadn’t been before. But the more I thought about it, the more perfect I thought it would be.
Jordan, and in particular, Petra, is simply magical. So, I booked the flights and had the trip to look forward to. Then disaster almost struck. The return flight was cancelled as Wizz no longer operated a Tuesday flight from Aqaba to Abu Dhabi. I kept putting off cancelling my flights because I wasn’t ready to give up on the dream just yet.
At the beginning of November, I felt it was about time I did something about it. So, looking at the Wizz site, I randomly checked to see if there were any flights out of Amman instead. To my absolute delight, there was. I went online to try rebooking, but the flight to Aqaba was now very expensive, and I didn’t want to lose that flight, so I rang the customer service number to see if they could assist with just cancelling my return journey.
I was on the line with the most seemingly unhelpful and unhappy person whom I think I’ve ever spoken to on the phone. He was so deadpan in his responses, and I thought that this call would go nowhere.
I explained the situation, and he told me to wait a minute. I am placed on hold, and when he comes back on the line, he tells me he can make the swap there and then as long as I say yes right now. I reply with an immediate yes, and with a click of a button, he has changed my flight.
I am still going to Jordan! I’m so excited.
I gushed out all the thank yous I could to the guy on the phone, who still didn’t sound enthused.
And that’s ok because I had enough enthusiasm for both of us.
Fast forward to today, and I am getting up at the crack of dawn to catch my 6.40 am flight. I live less than a 5-minute drive to the airport, so I decide to allow myself a little sleep in, more so for Amy’s sake, so she’s not too tired and cranky.
The alarm goes off at 3.40 am, and I jump up, have a quick shower and get ready. It isn’t too difficult to get Amy up, and soon enough, we are waiting for our Uber outside. I arrive at the airport at 4.20 am, and the line for check-in is the longest I’ve seen it in some time. We get to the end of the queue and wait patiently as the line moves very slowly.
We’ve been in line for over an hour when we are ushered to the front of the line as our flight is the next one to go. It took 1 ½ hours to check in today. Crazy. Luckily, passport control is a breeze thanks to the e-gates, and there is literally no one queuing for security. We are airside in minutes.
We head straight to the gate, although along the way we stop to buy a sandwich and a bottle of water. While the guy was popping our stuff into a bag, we heard the last call for our flight. We are still a few gates away, so we run/walk/shuffle to the gate.
We board the plane, and there are still quite a few people who are arriving after us. I guess lots of us got caught up in the crazy queues this morning!
The pilot says during his opening credits that there is a headwind today, and the trip will take 3 hours and 25 minutes. He also says that there will probably be turbulence, but it is such a smooth flight.
I had a bit of a nap during the flight after playing about 10 games of Sudoku. When we are preparing to land, I look out the window and see the most spectacular scenery. The mountains are interspersed with red sand. It is so beautiful.
We make a bank, and we seem to be flying very close to the mountains, although I am sure we are quite some distance away. After a few more banks, we are coming in to land.
Getting through passport control is quick, and the person checking our passports is really nice. He asks if Amy is my baby. He welcomes us very warmly to Jordan.
Next up, I get the hire car for our trip. I ordered a small car, Yaris, or something similar. I get a Suzuki that looks quite beat up! The poor car has many little dents and scratches on it. When I went around the car with the car attendant, the picture was covered in dashes and circles where all the damage was. Hopefully, we return her unscathed. Well, no more scathed than she currently is, anyway.
We start towards our first destination, Wadi Rum. The drive should take just a bit less than one hour. On the way out of the city, I am greeted with a beautiful view of palm trees and mountains, with the clearest blue sky.
The roads are very quiet. We pass a couple of checkpoints and get waved through straight away. I am honestly surprised by how few cars are on the road. The road surface is not great, and I feel the car drifting a bit in the lane.
Soon enough, we are at the turnoff to head towards Wadi Rum. I was mildly surprised by how easily I remembered the way. Although it is only one or two turns from the airport, really!
We stop off at the heritage train to have a look. We aren’t able to go on the train because the timings just didn’t work out. But at least we still got to see it and even climb on board. The backdrop of the mountains and sand is so pretty against the train.
We hop back into the car and keep driving the last few kilometres to the visitor centre. I am shocked by how few cars are in the car park. I feel like we are the only tourists here. Another group comes soon after us, but really, there is no one here.
Our Jordan Pass gets stamped by the ticket office, and then we need to check in with the police regarding where we are staying. After the formalities are completed, we go back to the car and make our way to Wadi Rum Village, where we are meeting the tour guide for today.
As we are parking the car, a person comes over to us, and sure enough, it is our guide for the day. We hop into the back of his ute, and we are on our way.
The first stop is a nearby restaurant where we pick up lunch. The restaurant supplies us with a container of rice and vegetables and a quarter chicken each. Additionally, we are given yoghurt, soupy vegetables, and a spicy sauce to add to the chicken and rice. We are also given bread and a drink. We are taking the food with us and will eat in the desert.
The first stop is Lawrence’s Spring. This is a spring that is piped down the mountain to troughs for camels to drink at. The spring is said to have been where Lawrence of Arabia washed during the Arab Revolt. I will need to look up what that was. We could climb to the spring, which is up the mountain a bit, but after having done it last time I visited, I doubted very much that Amy would like to do it.
So instead of rock/mountain climbing, we opted to sit in the tea house and eat our lunch. Lunch was amazing. And I don’t mean that lightly. The rice was beautifully flavoured with spices. The chicken was the nicest I’ve had in forever, with a delicious lemon seasoning. The yoghurt and other sauces just enhanced the already yummy flavours. I was so impressed that I couldn’t put my fork down! I just wanted to keep tasting it.
Near the tea house and Lawrence’s Spring, there is a stone tablet that has inscriptions on it. I have no idea what the inscriptions say or mean, but the guide for today says they are very old.
Back in the ute, we are driven to the red sand dune area. We start to climb up the sand dune, but it is really hard work! For every step we take forward, we sink and slide back a bit. The sand is so soft.
Amy sits down and finds the sand really warm, so we both muck around taking our photos. Amy decided that she doesn’t want to keep going, but I do, so I leave her to sit in the warm sand while I make my way to the rocky top.
From there, you can see great views across the desert. There’s a solo traveller up there that I snap a couple of photos for, and I get some back in exchange.
I then head back down, and running down a sand dune is much more fun than trying to run up it! After meeting back up with Amy and bounding down the dunes, we then emptied our shoes of a lot of red sand!
Our next stop on our tour is Khazali Canyon. This canyon is beautiful. I loved it the last time I was here, and it’s even better to experience it with someone you can point stuff out to. This canyon has inscriptions, or petroglyphs, on the walls. They depict animals like camels, cats and dogs (apparently hyenas live in Wadi Rum).
The wonderful thing about this canyon is that you don’t have to go deep into the canyon to find the petroglyphs. There are so many starting right near the entrance. There are also ancient Arabic writing carvings.
From the canyon, we go to the first of two rock bridges. The first one is called Little Bridge. Amy even decides to climb up with me. It’s not overly difficult to climb to the top, but the bridge is quite narrow up there, so it could be quite scary for someone afraid of heights. Luckily, both of us are fine with heights!
We pose for a few photos and then make our way slowly back down. There are a few times we scoot down on our butts to make it safer for us as it’s a shorter distance to fall. Ha!
Our driver guide then takes us to the second rock bridge, Um Frouth Rock Bridge. This bridge is located in the white sand area. It is so cool to see the different coloured sands.
Um Frouth Rock Bridge is very high. Much higher than Little Bridge. The path leading to the top is a lot steeper and smoother than the other bridge, too, making it a much more difficult climb.
Amy opts against climbing up. She hangs out below waiting for me to get to the bridge so she can be my official photographer. The climb up is not easy, and there’s one section that I don’t feel I can even get my leg high enough to step up, but I do by trying out a few different footholds.
After my photo has been taken, I scoot all the way back down on my bum. I must have been quite a sight for people to see. Although most other people making their way down were doing the exact same thing.
With this climb successfully completed, we get back into the back of the ute and drive to the sunset viewing area. Our driver guide points out where the best location is to watch the sunset, but we can’t pick up the trail, so we just sit wherever. It really won’t make that much of a difference if I am where I am or three metres higher at a vantage point.
It feels like the wait for the sunset takes so long. But the actual sunset is over before I even have the chance to take any photos. It’s crazy how quickly the sun is moving, or the earth is moving, I should say.
With the last of the locations seen, we are taken back to Wadi Rum Village and dropped off at our car. We then drive to our accommodation for the night. It is about a 15-minute drive, and with the light fading, I want to get there as soon as possible.
We reach Jabal Rum Camp and are shown to our room. Except it’s not the right room, but what I didn’t realise is that we were getting an upgrade. I simply said, ‘Oh, I booked a dome’ and showed the staff my booking. So, we head to the dome and realise very quickly that the first room was an upgrade! Not to worry, as at least I still get to sleep in a dome.
We are told dinner will be ready at 7 pm. I ask how much dinner will be because I contacted the camp a week ago to see if dinner would be available. He assures me it is complimentary. At 7 pm, we make our way to the dining hall and are greeted with a table full of small dishes of salads and bread. This will do me just fine after such a big lunch.
The next thing I know, there is a gentleman setting down a giant plate of chicken, rice and vegetables! There’s no way we can eat this amount of food. Just simply no way. We have a good crack, but I can’t help but feel bad for the person who went to so much trouble to prepare the food.
Again, the food is sublime. The chicken with rice is so delicious that it is hard to stop eating. But we do because we simply cannot fit in any more food.
We come back to the room and take a few long exposure photos of the stars. It was such a brilliant day. So much to see and do and eat.
I can’t wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us!
More journal entries from this trip
A Long Weekend in Jordan – Travelogue Day 2
A Long Weekend in Jordan – Travelogue Day 3 & 4
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