Desert vibes

Wednesday + Thursday, November 18th + 19th

6:30 am. Today we have to get up early. We booked an overnight stay in the desert in Wadi Rum and we have to be at our bus half an hour before departure at 7:30. I, alone, always have problems being on time, and with my two co-idiots, time management is not necessarily getting any better. By the time we have taken a shower, packed, and found a taxi driver who knows where we want to go, it's already close to 8 when we reach the bus stop, right next to the Jet Bus Office. We then realize that there is no bus departing at 8 o'clock (it's not like we didn't call ahead and book 3 seats for the 8 o'clock ride), but at 9. So we can relax there for a while and have a little snack before we board a very comfortable bus with plenty of legroom an hour later. Let's head to the desert!

After a short morning nap, I look out the window and recognize the landscape that I am seeing now from our trip during summer school. "You will see a lot of nothing today," Bara'a's voice sounds in my head as we traverse a barren desert landscape. Eventually, the first rock formations appear, we are getting closer to Wadi Rum. When we finally get off in Aqaba, we are greeted by warm summer air (here in the south of Jordan it is even warmer than in Amman), and a nice taxi driver who has been specially ordered to take us from the city to the desert.

Everything is going smoothly, until we have to go through a checkpoint with our taxi before going to Wadi Rum. Border guards look at what we are transporting in the taxi and then get stuck at the trunk. With Ramo, we have a translator on board who can tell us what the problem is: for some reason that remains inexplicable to us, our taxi driver has stored fireworks in his trunk, which is now causing him trouble. After sitting in the taxi for about three quarters of an hour, watching the wonderful sun as it relentlessly continues its path across the horizon, our driver has to justify his unauthorized load, with the result that he returns to us without fireworks and with 120 JD lighter pockets. This taxi ride is definitely a loss for him.

However, he doesn't show his displeasure and safely brings us to a small village on the edge of the desert. There Firaz, a cousin of the camp operator with whom I made the reservation, is already waiting for us with an old pick-up truck. We board the loading area and race into the desert, towards the setting sun. After about 10 minutes, Firaz stops. I immediately suspect that there is something wrong with the car, but he waves it off. "No, no problem! You can have a look around!" So, with our cameras, we capture the mountainous desert landscape around us and then see that Firaz has opened the hood of the pick-up and is tinkering there. So, this is what "no problem" looks like. But we rightly trust in his technical knowledge: after a few minutes, he has solved the non-existent problem and we continue driving. It takes another 10 minutes until we spot a Bedouin tent in the distance. Our sleeping place for tonight, we joke, until we realize that Firaz is actually steering towards this tent: it is the first tent of our camp, the Green Desert Camp. We have arrived.

As Rebecca, who gave me the recommendation for this camp, has already said, it is a very small camp. On the left side, there are less than a dozen smaller tents, on the right side a large tent, next to which 3 solar panels capture the desert sunlight. That's about it. Two more young men help us unload our luggage and lead us to two neighboring tents, our sleeping places for tonight. "Come, drink tea with us!" comes their invitation. So, we follow them into the large tent and find one of the coziest places I have ever seen.

The whole tent is covered with red patterned carpets, on the floor and on the benches are the softest sheepskins I have ever touched. In the middle of the tent, a fire pit, in which a cozy fire is burning. On the edge of the fire stands a sturdy tea kettle, from which we are now served black tea with sage. Simply everything here invites pure relaxation. While we watch the crackling fire, the three young Bedouins tell us that it is now too late for the jeep tour that we had actually planned for today in the desert. "But you can have a walk around the camp," comes their suggestion, "the sun is still very nice." And we don't need to be told twice. We walk out of the camp, first to the left, and then realize the silence that prevails here. Absolute silence. We can talk to Ramo, who is about a hundred meters ahead of Hanni and me, at a normal volume and have no trouble understanding him. An absolute contrast to the daily honking and street noise of the big city of Amman.

After a while, we turn around and walk in the other direction, where the sky and the mountains below have turned a deep red, radiating the lingering light of the setting sun. It is truly breathtakingly beautiful. We walk until the end of the mountain range and savor the rainbow-colored sky until twilight is almost over and the darkness of the night slowly sets in. Time to go back. Since we have only been walking straight, we march back in the direction we came from. The first stars are already announcing themselves, shining magnificently before us. We are already fascinated by the sight and slow down our pace with our heads up, while the darkness of the night continues to advance.

It is soon at a point where we have to turn on our phone flashlights because we can no longer see exactly where we are going. In the dark, the surroundings suddenly look completely different. And at some point, we wonder why the camp has still not appeared. Have we really walked that far? Yes, according to Ramo. Hanni and I are no longer sure. And eventually, neither is Ramo. Maybe we accidentally passed it - it could be, if our Bedouin friends haven't turned on the lights yet. So, we turn around and walk back again. After a few minutes, Ramo interjects - he believes it was in the other direction after all. I have completely lost my orientation by now and just follow the other two, who now change direction again. My flashlight still works, but my phone battery is already below 20%. We walk for about 15 minutes again, then even Ramo is no longer sure if we really walked that far. Can it really be? We got lost even though we always went straight ahead? In the distance, we hear dogs barking. None of us knows exactly where we are and where we need to go, but stopping is not an option. In the cool desert wind, we turn around once again and walk in the opposite direction.

As I imagine spending the night here in the cold of the desert nights (eventually our phones will run out of battery, and wandering around aimlessly without light is absolutely pointless), we hear a motor noise from the distance. A motorcycle, we recognize from the light from afar. Maybe this person can tell us where we need to go. We wave our flashlight beams around, and indeed, the vehicle approaches. However, as it stands right in front of us, we realize that it is not a motorcycle. It is the rickety pick-up truck that we came to the desert with a few hours ago, with only one of the two front lights working. Nadjah is sitting behind the wheel, with whom I had arranged the overnight stay at the camp but whom we had not yet seen. "Are you lost?" he asks us with a calm voice and friendly eyes. "Yes." We nod. "Okay. Come."

Relieved, we climb onto the loading area. That was a close call. But it is really shocking how easy it is to get lost in the desert. It turns out that Nadjah picking us up was just a coincidence, as we later find out. He wasn't actually looking for us, but on his way to his house in his village when the weak lights of our flashlights made him suspicious. Just because he knows that at this time of day, no one usually walks along this part of the desert, he drove towards us. If we had been in the middle of the desert, further away from civilization, things could have gone really wrong.

Now we are served tea again and sit around the warm, protective fire in the large tent. I cannot put into words how grateful I am to be sitting on the cozy sheepskins at this moment and not outside in the desert. Another guest is also sitting at the fire pit. His name is Ghasanne, he is from Morocco, and tonight he shares the camp with the three of us - besides us and the Bedouins who take care of us guests, there is no one else. So, we have the dinner that will be served to us soon all to ourselves.

It is prepared according to old Bedouin tradition: in a barrel, under which a fire burns, under the desert sand. Rice, vegetables, and chicken have cooked on a kind of tray. Salads, dips, and bread are served as well, and everything tastes incredibly delicious. After that, tea again by the fire. The guys turn on Arabic music, which now emanates from a large speaker in the corner of the tent. "Can you dance Dabke?" we ask. And they don't need to be asked twice. Before we know it, we find ourselves in a circle with all the people present in the tent and perform more or less rhythmic steps. There is a lively, special, and beautiful atmosphere.

We dance until we have already taken off our jackets and sweaters and need a break from the warm sweat. Hanni then wants to know if they also smoke shisha here. Although not intended that way, our Bedouin friends understand this as an invitation. They don't actually offer shisha here, and nobody really knows where they dug up the old device, which they bring to us shortly afterwards, filled with double apple tobacco. Mmm.

The shisha tastes better as the evening goes on, until our eyes grow tired around half-past 11 and we decide to take a look at the starry sky before going to sleep. And it is truly breathtaking. In addition, the half-moon has once again turned a deep yellow tonight and is now radiating with the millions of stars. There is absolutely no light pollution out here, and my eyes can hardly bear the beauty that the sparkling sky is offering us. The cold is the only reason that eventually drives us into our beds. Three blankets have been prepared for us there, which we can all use well. My cold toes don't thaw out tonight, but I still find my sleep. With a lot of peace of mind.

"Eva, wake up!" I feel my cold breath as I hear Hannah's voice in the early morning. I look at my phone. 5:30 am. "The sky!" Reluctantly, I peel myself out of my blanket cave and follow her outside. Yesterday we had considered getting up for the sunrise, but without Hanni, I would definitely have abandoned that plan this morning. Good thing we have her as an energy bundle. It will still take a while for the sun to show itself, but you can already see how the dark night sky slowly turns into a red-blue gradient. We shiver a little while looking at the increasingly colorful horizon when Firaz appears with his thick sheepskin coat and collects some desert wood: he makes a small fire for us. Abdu, his cousin, then arrives with a teapot, which he places into the flames. Then Ramo joins us as well. Together, we gather around the small but warming fire until the sun shows itself at half-past 6. Huge, strong, and beautiful. The play of light that is now presented to us is really hard to describe.

Feeling fortunate, we then have our breakfast on the sheepskins, and after that, we quickly pack our things and gather again on the old pick-up truck (which has already undergone an external start in the early morning). We set off on our desert tour. Firaz, although only 20 years old, knows the desert like the back of his hand and leads us through a wonderful desert landscape. In between, he stops at beautiful viewpoints where we can climb a few rocks, enjoy the views, and take group photos. A stop at a Bedouin camp, where we listen to traditional singing while drinking sweetened tea, is also included.

By lunchtime, it is time to gather firewood again: while we cross a small canyon together with Ghasanne, Firaz prepares us a lunch on the other side: salad, muttabal, and galaie, a kind of tomato sauce. Everything is very delicious. Even though a fresh wind is blowing, the sun burns our faces, and we are all a little tired but very happy when Firaz brings us back to the desert village. Ghasanne, who has rented a car here in Jordan, takes us back to Aqaba, so we can skip the taxi ride this time.

We are not even two hours away from the next sunset, so we decide that it is not worth staying in a paid hotel resort anymore (actually, I wanted to show Hanni and Ramo the underwater beauty of the Red Sea), so instead, we head to Aqaba's public beach. It may be free, but it still has its price. While Hanni and I change on the beach with towels wrapped around us, we enjoy the attention of all the people around us. Enjoyment is not quite the right word, though. The group of women behind us stares at us with hostile looks, accompanied by regular "Eww" sounds. Men stare at us, less hostile but just as uncomfortable. (Perhaps a bit naive), I didn't think about the fact that here, on an unpaid beach among locals, there might be a slightly different atmosphere than in the guarded hotel resorts. Hanni and I quickly put our tops back on and only collect a few stones on the beach before getting dressed again. Enough swimming experience for today.

However, the sunset over the Red Sea is beautiful to watch here, and we quickly get ourselves a beer, with which we observe the unique sun as it disappears. Right on time, we later sit in the bus back to Amman. Those were two incredibly beautiful days.

Moving, Hanni, and Ramo in front of the famous Red Sea sunset