Wadi Rum

From Imakoopedia

Wadi Rum is a spectacularly scenic desert valley (Arabic, wadi) in the south of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Table of contents

1 Understand 2 Get in 3 Get around 4 See 5 Do 6 Eat & Drink

Understand

Lawrence of Arabia spent a significant amount of time here in the course of the British-inspired Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War (1914-1918). Fans of the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia will be familiar with the landscape, not so much sand dunes, as a tumble of soaring cliffs and desert rock plateaus (jebels). The area is quite isolated and largely inhospitable to settled life - the only permanent inhabitants are several thousand Bedouin nomads and a few villagers. There is no real infrastructure, leaving the area fortunately quite unspoilt: apart from the goat hair tents of the bedouin, the only structures are a few concrete shops and houses and the fort headquarters of the Desert Patrol Corps. There are no hotels.

Get in

Wadi Rum is a short detour from the Desert Highway between Amman and Aqaba. A side road leads to the entrance to Wadi Rum, where you will find little more than a parking lot, a police office and lots of would-be guides offering camel and 4x4 treks.

Get around

By camel or four wheel drive vehicle

See

• Lawrence's Well - a small spring 2km (1.2 miles) south-west of the village of Rum. The pool is largely unprepossessing, being mostly just a stagnant puddle, but the views across the desert from there are truly spectacular
• the Nabatean temple in Rum - the surrounding area is covered in Thamudic and Kufic rock art

Do

The genuine attraction of the Wadi Rum is the desert itself, best accessed in a hired four wheel drive or on a camel. Some visitors only do a few hours in the Wadi, but it's definitely worth doing a guided trip of several days duration, staying overnight with Bedouin families or camping in the desert.

Climbing is another popular activity: Wadi Rum Rock Page (http://www.wadirum.net/)

Eat & Drink

• At the entrance to the park, a small tent-cum-restaurant serves simple Jordanian fare of bread, yogurt and such. You might even be luckier than one Imakoopedialer who got food poisoning here.