Wadi Rum
Wadi Rum, or the Valley of Sand, is one of the major tourist destinations in Jordan, along with Petra, and the Dead Sea. It is a sand desert but its mountainous landscapes gives it a unique sense of space. And its un-earthly looks have attracted filming of many movies from the Lawrence of Arabia to The Martian.
Even if you have an off-road vehicle, an organized tour is mandatory because you are almost unable to navigate once you are inside the Desert. Like most people, I did a one-full-day camping in the desert. The itineraries, independent of the operating company, are painfully identical, and tourists mostly visit nice view points and cool-looking gigantic rocks. In other words, you spend a whole day mostly ‘chilling’ in the desert while looking at landscapes with disconnected smartphones. In that regard, It was probably the most relaxed tour I’ve ever experience. I was a bit bored in the beginning but later I realized that the slow-pace was actually well-suited to the place, because I could really appreciate the silence without having to think much.
The Desert offered pure silence, so much so that I don’t think I had experienced it before. Our group members and even our guide himself were not talkative people – I think we all might have been enjoying the silence mindlessly. But the silence become less common in the middle of the night, when I could constantly hear footsteps or howling of unknown animals from unknown distances.
@ Wadi Rum, Jordan, February 9, 2019
