Tuesday 26th November – Wednesday 27th November 2019
Get up, get up, get up!! It’s 7am and time to go, yeah that’s completely opposite to my level of enthusiasm! Not that I wasn’t keen to see more of Jordan, but my snot level had hit a new high and I was feeling especially crapola. But enough whining, today we were heading to Aqaba to pick up the rest of the tour who were finishing up a leg in Egypt. Now when Donnie said the previous day we were heading to Aqaba, not sure if it was his accent or the snot in my head but I thought he said Agrabah, Aladdin’shome!! Hadn’t quite figured out that I was in the wrong country for that but whatevs. But to get to Aqaba there was 5 hours on the bus first, with some pretty countryside that my snot infused face didn’t quite take full advantage of looking at. There was the big bus as promised though so 5 hours of napping was a dream!!
It was when we were pulling into Aqaba that I realised Aladdin did not live here! But that momentary disappointment was replaced by palms trees and green and my favourite, the ocean!!
With Abdul giving us a tight BOTB time and not being sure where Donnie lay with it, we legged it to the beach and were greeted by blue waters, palm trees and the most rubbish filled sand I’ve ever seen in my life! Yeah, ocean pretty, beach not so much. We did manage to find a dock wall thingy with direct access to the ocean so shoes off and dangled our feet in the water, hello ocean, I’ve missed you!
So an amazing thing about the port city of Aqaba on the Red Sea is that from this one place, you can see four countries! Yep, really cool!! So standing on the beach if I look to the right, there’s the shore of Egypt and to the far right are the hills of Israel.
Then when I look to the left, there’s Saudi Arabia (taken from a video cos snot face forgot to take a picture) and of course at my feet Jordan!!
So if you see a country but don’t actually step foot in it, does it count as having been there?? No, not when I put it like that. Anyhoo, after too many selfies cos it takes a year to get one good shot with this snot head of mine, we legged it back to the bus, with a quick stop for wine for our nights desert safari. Only running 5 minutes late the four of us girls were kinda shocked to find the bus gone. Hmmm. I’ve seen tour guides leave people behind before but not for being 5 minutes late!! Luckily I did listen when Donnie handed out his mobile number so using the last of my phone credit called him only to find out he’d left early to pick up the Egypt group, apparently he texted everyone, funny how none of us four got the text!! Anyhoo, taking a moment to grab a cold drink while waiting for the bus, we were joined by a few others cos apparently they didn’t get the text either. Abdul never left us, Abdul 6, Donnie -1.
Anyhoo, it was desert time and now with a jam packed bus we were off to Wadi Rum. Unfortunately for us that started the day in Amman, Wadi Rum is only 3 hours from there so we’d done a major detour, instead of it taking us 3 hours to get to Wadi Rum, it took 10. Yeah Aqaba was nice but would have rathered more desert time. Anyhoo, lots of those on this trip so far, pulling into Wadi Rum put me back in a good mood, felt like we’d just rocked up on a distant planet from Star Wars! Now I’m just name dropping, some of the new Rise of Skywalker movie was filmed there, so was The Martian starring Matt Damon. Red sand, enormous oddly beautiful shaped rocks and of course, camels!
Arriving at camp there was a quick toilet stop then straight into our Jeep safari, unlike in Morocco where you sit inside the car, these ones are utes with seats in the tray, soooo much more fun!!! The views across the desert are amazing, the rock formations are like nothing I’ve ever seen. I mean I’ve seen a few big rocks, but not all together like this and on this scale. I know, they probs look like this in the Aussie outback, really should explore my home country!!!
After hooning around for a while we stopped at a special rock with drawings on the stone that have been around for thousands of years, the drawings are directions to Petra, so Indiana Jones!! I was confused how they could last so long but the people who drew them were smarty pants and put them in a spot where the elements wouldn’t smash them and erode. Very smart!! Also some time for posed desert snaps, could only hold my arms up for a few seconds before the snot started running down my face!!!
BITJ and more hooning before arriving at an obvious tourist spot cos there was a hell of a line up of cars. More drawings in stone but these ones were of people, Lawrence of Arabia and some other King. Did anyone else just think Lawrence of Arabia was just a movie?? Didn’t realize the dude was real, must watch that movie. This spot was super fun and pretty, and even though I had zero energy I followed Liz, climbing some rocks for a gorgeous view, Wadi Rum is spectacular. A different kind of desert to the Sahara but they each hold their own!
After some coercing it was BITJ and to a spot to watch a spectacular sunset. Sunsets in the desert, nothing quite like it!!
Unfortunately we then had to go back to camp, really would have loved more time to explore the desert, the Jeep tour felt like a teaser! Anyhoo, back at camp we got our alloted rooms, got to choose to bunk with Liz, these camp rooms/tents had little en-suites, nice to not have to leg it across the desert in the middle of the night for the loo! And now, time to chillax. Out came the wine, down went more cold and flu tablets and I made a real effort to talk to people. I’d been feeling so shite I hadn’t made the time to really talk to everyone and find out their stories, also because when you’re sick, people kinda avoid you which is fair, when you’re traveling you do not want to be ill, you miss out as per Budapest! Would have avoided me too!! But I tried, chatting over a wine while standing in the desert camp and waiting for our dinner to be dug up. Yeah, this finally was traditional Jordanian style, like a hangi in New Zealand, they bury a basket of meat and veg in hot coals in the sand where it cooks into awesome yumminess. And by gosh it was good!!! And like Morocco, the kitty cats joined us for dinner!
After dinner, it was dancing time!! I love me a traditional dance and no snot head was gonna stop me. So I danced, we all danced however they only played about 3 songs, not sure if we sucked so bad they didn’t want to do more or if that’s all our money paid for! Either way, I was pretty tired so after listening to, I wanna say a sitar?? some kind of Jordanian version of a guitar while sitting around a camp fire, I retired to bed, I did have to be up at 5 for a camel ride after all!
Up quite literally before the sun, we ventured just outside of camp to find our camels just patiently waiting. Camels are kinda always patient huh? Just kinda sit there chewing and spitting occasionally. Anyhoo, only a handful of us chose to get up a stupid o’clock for the ride, knowing how epic the one in Morocco was, I didn’t want to miss out. Ever so awkwardly up again, there’s no graceful way to do it on a camel, we headed I really don’t know where, forward outside the camp. About 15 minutes later, not far from camp, we disembarked to watch the sunrise and by gosh it was pretty. Sunrises in the desert are just something else.
So something kinda weird happened while we were riding, ok, little weird, lots annoying!! These two Japanese ladies walked the whole time in front of us taking pictures, kinda hard to enjoy the serenity when you can hear the snaps of an SLR and chit chat the whole time. At first it was funny, then got real annoying. Kinda like camel paparazzi. And then when we stopped to watch the sunrise, they stood in front of us taking more pictures, was lucky to get some shots without them in it. One of the dudes tried to give them his email to at least get copies of the trillion of the pics they took but no can do apparently. Anyhoo, for the next half hour we just stood around while the camel guide dudes sat and smoked and chatted. Then we finally got back on and went back to camp, now it was daylight I was mostly looking at all the rubbish in the sand. Us humans are AH’s polluting like we do. Overall the camel ride was meh, I mean the sunrise was nice but would have liked to ride the camels for more than half the time at least, and go somewhere at least more than a stones throw from camp. It’s hard, Morocco was so brilliant, I’m comparing and while Jordan is bloody amazing, the service of the tour company isn’t measuring up. Anyhoo….
Back at camp we tried to shower but the dribble of cold water out the taps meant we were still camel stinky. Shout out to the person in the next door tent who showered for half hour and used all the water, gotta love tours!! At brekkie, which was a massive smorgasbords of bready cake things and kitty cats, everyone was complaining about getting eaten alive my mozzies, I hadn’t properly looked in the mirror but upon inspecting my hands, yep, red spots all over, I must have been tasty!! A pit stop in the bath room before BOTB and my face looked like a 13 year old teenager with acne. Great, I’m gonna look gorgeous for Petra…
Petra was a good 5 hours away, to break up the trip a little we stopped at this old train, just right there in the middle of the desert. Donnie, who I’ve just remembered is called Osama, but will continue to call Donnie cos I’m an arse, told us that there used to be a railway from Istanbul to Mecca, but the Arabic people sabotaged it when trying to drive out the Ottomans. Still no idea who the ottomans were, must google!
Being Petra bound I was excited AF, this is why I came to Jordan!! And when we stopped to see the canyon of the crescent moon from afar, I felt like a little kid at Christmas!!! It’s Petra, right there!!!!!
Holly vs the world 