Wadi Rum

Something i'd been looking forward to was this place called Wadi Rum...no idea why but Julie knows as its in the Lonely Planet. This is a very large deset area with some great rocks in the middle. You can see on the photos. Its like the holy Grail of off road driving and the mecca of all Land Rover fanatics. All round the world people eventually come here. Its a must.

Its also a bit of a tourist trap and once you have explained that "we have our own car" about 4 times your are left alone. Its only 5jod to get in and by all accounts theres a charge for the car which we never paid and no one asked. Even the guy that checked our tickets (on the road) never asked.

In the photos you will see we did some washing. We do this by filling a dry bag with soap and water and lashing it to the roof of the car. The motion gives it a good wash. We then rinse out in the other dry bag. (thanks to Andy and Emma for the Birthday present) The gatehouse to the Wadi had a tap so we took 60litres of water into the widerness to wash clothes and ourselves. Check out the photos of the clothes washing but none of Julie getting a desert shower as we thought the bikini in the dead sea was enough and I'm sure Bev would agree..( I doesn't happen often Bev and now I have photos ! )

We never got stuck in the sand in Wadi although i tried hard and there were some close calls. Since the are is so large we stayed 2 full days and slept in a couple of spots although they look quite close together they probably are in relation to the expanse. We drove probably 50 miles through sand, rock and dunes and saw some amazing sights.

You will see below a picture of the rear door stay that broke. I had it welded back up in Amman and fitted it in the lazy afternoon in the desert (not much to do!!!) We only took a bottle of vodka so unless we wanted to get drunk there is absolutely nothing to do after the sun went down at 4:30pm....It then gets cold so we went to bed by 6pm and watched a video on the Laptop and then sleep at about 7pm only to wake up again at 6:30 when the sun came up. We're getting a full nights sleep for sure.

The picture of the Land Cruiser wasn't me pulling him out or vice versa but a local guide who offered us a cup of tea and a chat. He's not getting much buisness due to the syrian thing and the Egypt thing. He's was quite well informed on all things and asked us to post his details to the following Sweedish contingent. We shall oblige. The tea was nice, as was the conversations and insight into local life.

The rock bridge although accessible was out of the question without a guide and Julie would have freaked out as well might I. We watched some people cross it as they can be seen on the photos (not the one i posted unfortunately).