Wadi Rum, Aqaba

After leaving Luxor, we sailed north through a part of the Red Sea and then entered the Gulf of Aqaba. We sailed to the northern tip of the Gulf where we docked at Aqaba, Jordan. The Gulf of Aqaba is a body of water at the northern tip of the Red Sea, with the Sinai Peninsula to the west and the Arabian Peninsula to the east. Four countries share the coastline of this Gulf: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Sailing through this narrow waterway afforded beautiful views of the stark, desert, rugged, mountainous landscape on either side.

 

On Wednesday, we took a trip into the city of Aqaba. From a certain location in Aqaba, you can see the four countries mentioned above, plus Palestine. The excursion took us to a place called Wadi Rum. The scenery along this drive was absolutely breathtaking: more desert but with the most beautiful, jagged, rocky, barren mountains jutting up steeply alongside the road. The rocks are mostly sandstone, with bands of granite running throughout.

Wadi Rum is a famous historical place where the renowned Sir Lawrence of Arabia (who was British) helped the locals drive the Ottomans (Turks) out of the country. The event took place while people were on a train, with Sir Lawrence and his Arab (Jordanian) allies surprising the train by coming out from behind the surrounding coffee-colored desert hills in a surprise attack. During our excursion, we took part in the re-enactment of this historical event. Since we were riding on the train, I suppose we were the bad guys (the Turks). But since we knew what was coming, it was impossible to re-enact the surprise part of the historical event. However, we still enjoyed it. We sat in an open-air car on the train. In front of us were soldiers sitting by machine guns, always at the ready in case of a surprise attack. Lo and behold, before the train had gone 20 minutes, Sir Lawrence and his band of attackers suddenly appeared when we rounded a big rock boulder, chasing the train and shooting their rifles. The soldiers on our train fired back. There was lots of loud gunfire to make it all seem realistic, with obviously blanks being fired. At least it appeared that way as there were no fatalities, not even any casualties, on this day.

 

Today we were watching the movie "The Martian" and the landscape looked familiar. We googled it and found out that it had been filmed at Wadi Rum.

This is a very strange thing to say, given that we were in a desert, but it was very cold in the open-air car on the train. It was late in the day, around 4:30, and the air temperature was in the upper 70s. But there was a cold wind blowing and at times we were actually freezing. Yep, we froze, in a desert, in Jordan.

On the way back to Aqaba, we stopped at a desert resort for tea and refreshments. We had some ginger tea and cookies and cakes, all very delicious, while Joe and I visited with Mr. and Mrs. Eileen (sorry, didn’t catch his name) who were from Long Island but now living a retired life in Las Vegas. All in all, a very entertaining and enjoyable day.