wadi rum

this past weekend was ciee's trip to wadi rum, yet another of jordan's geographical treasures. wadi rum (which just translates to rum valley- and is actually pronounced room not rum haha) is an area of the southern desert famous for it's unique and majestic rock formations.


unfortunately, what with our group of 85 ciee kids it was not exactly a weekend of authentic local experiences but rather a trip of the overly touristic variety, but such is ciee. nonetheless i enjoyed the trip for what it was, and the scenery of wadi rum is amazing no matter how many people you travel with.
friday afternoon was spent careening through the wadi in open-backed pickup trucks, stopping to clamber up and down rocks and sand dunes along the way.






the unfortunate casualty of this adventure was my camera, which was of course in my pocket during a run-turned-tumble down a sand dune, and is consequently now refusing to function due to the sand KATIR that is stuck in all its crevices :( laaaaame, but i'm thinking that one of these days mumkin it is just going to decide to wake up insha'allah haha. but my broken camera provided lots of entertainment for several of our bedouin truck drivers, who used everything from tire air pumps to wires to try and fix it for me. the individual below successfully used his teeth to get the lens far enough out in order to take a picture of himself, but unfortunately that success did not last and i had to forbid the infliction of any further bite marks on my lens.


after watching the sunset we stayed the night in the tourist version of a bedouin camp, but with its campfire, tea, and desert stars i was a happy camper :)


the next morning a few friends and i got up at 5:30 to see the sunrise, which was a beautiful array of pinks-oranges-yellows as the light rose over the hills.



we then set off on a three-hour camel ride through the desert, which was extremely exciting as i had never ridden a camel before. camel riding is quite the challenge in terms of staying on the camel, especially when it chooses to run and when it is time to dismount as both of these involve a sort of jolting teeter-totter motion that is not for the faint of heart. we had lots of laughs during our camel caravan, however, camels/camel saddles are NOT comfortable, and after three hours i was more than ready to bid my four-legged friend goodbye.