The middle east part two

October 10th

The Petra tourist complex Noonish

This is a pit stop two thirds the way from Amman to Wadi Rum. The trip is about three hours long and we’re been on the road about two of those. The people are pretty nice. We Americans number about five, which is large for something like this…we should be less but this is okay, as most of the women are good looking.

Wadi rum is a beduin nature reserve. We get to stay in a semi-authentic tent, which will add to the experience, I guess. We’ll see when we get there…

Outside is desert, and desert usually looks the same everywhere, except for the species of cactus. There are a few tree farms here and there, which look really weird…

Near Wadi Rum-two-ish

After a huge slog we are now at Wadi Rum, which resembles the Olgas in Australia or the monument valley area in Arizona. Its really impressive. Right now we’re transferring our stuff from the van to this guys’ house, where we’ll get picked up by the land rovers to get to the Bedouin holiday camp, where we’ll spend the night. I don’t really know how long we’re going to stay here ant the transit point, so we sit here and discuss trivia.

Three-ish

We got to Wadi Rum about two, and transferring our stuff from the van to this guy’s house, we got ion the vehicles and headed out to see Wadi Rum’s greatest hits. We mostly saw the amazing mountains, which during the Pleistocene were weathered to look like stalagtiteses in cave.

There are lots of bizarre formations that look like something designed by either Guuldi or Dali, whom were quite beautiful and others were humorous. The area, as was said before, resembles Central Australia or Baja California. The temperature varies immensely between shade and sun. This is a very beautiful and mysterious place. We’ve seen.

Oct 11

Wadi Rum—seven AM or so

The Bedouin Experience® was pretty good. We sat and ate in an authentic Bedouin tent and l slept in another. We didn’t see the stars as it was rather cloudy, except for when ZI had to go piss at around three in the morning. I saw what looked like the whole universe, which was amazing even without my glasses on.

Noonish

On our return to the Rum Village we got a good look at Jebel Rum (Rum’s mountain) the rock they named the wadi after, apparently this Rum guy was pretty important…In the morning we checked out a Nabitean temple. The Nabiteans were the first Arabs to invade the Middle East well before Mohammed showed up. It was not nearly as impressive as the surrounding mountains, and rock formations. Now on to Petra.