Jordan - Part 3

After we left Petra, we drove an hour south to Wadi Rum. We happened to time our visit to Wadi with a re-enactment of a 1917 train ride through the desert that the Jordanian government puts on periodically. It’s based on the Arab conflict with the Ottoman expansion of the time. The Ottomans were attempting to lay a rail line from Istanbul to Mecca, but the Arabs resisted it with the help of an ex-British soldier who spent time living in a cave in Wadi Rum. He’s famously known to us as Lawrence of Arabia. The re-enactment was a lot of fun, the horses and camels ran fast enough to keep up with a train and then the Arab soldiers stopped the train and took the Ottoman guards hostage as well as a few tourists.

After that excitement, it was time to drive to our camp for the night, within the desert of Wadi. We stayed in a luxury Bedouin tent and had a traditional Bedouin meal cooked underground using hot embers. There was a sunset drive into the desert as well as another three-hour drive in the morning to a different part of the desert. Wadi Rum has been used as a filming location for several movies, The Martian, Dune, Star Wars, and of course Lawrence of Arabia. I’m not sure what Matt Damon’s problem was in The Martian, he was fully space-suited, I stood in the same spot and was perfectly fine sans spacesuit. He’s just weak I guess.

After Wadi Rum it was time to head back to the capital for an early morning flight to the birthplace of democracy. Special thanks to our wonderful guide Abdullah Ali.