Wadi Rum

This past weekend was fan-bloodytastic. Thursday evening we went to this sweet chill spot called books café, it attracts a more westernized more liberal crowd and it was overpriced, but it was sick spot. We spent a few hours there. The entire first floor of this place is a book store and then the next two floors are a restaurant/ lounge area. We sat on the rooftop, it was a really nice atmosphere, they had great food, argila, red lamps that set the mood and a wide range of music to top it all off.
By 8:30 Friday morning we were on the road to Wadi Rum in another festive bus with blaring Arab music haha. Wadi Rum is in South Jordan, it took 4 hours to get there. The director of our trip gave us all halls cough drops on the bus ride….. so random. The desert was just as I expected except there were a lot more mountains in the area than I thought there would be. We got to our Bedouin camp site and it was gorgeous, around 30 small tents lined up in four rows. There was a circular area in the middle of the camp site where people can chill and dance later at night with a fire pit it the center. There was giant tent-like area with chairs and tables where we went for all of our meals. The first thing we did when we got there was eat! We climbed the mountain that was closest to our camp site right after. It was cool seeing the desert from that elevated point of view.
When we were done climbing we got into the back of this truck. I was in 1 of 3 trucks that left the camp site, and we spent the rest of the day cruising through the desert. It was unbelievably exciting and gorgeous. We would flyyy down sand dunes, I can’t even count the number of times I thought our truck was going to tip over and we were all going to die. We would stop at different spots every 20 or so minutes. At one point we all climbed up a giant sand mountain. Half way through I thought my lungs were going to explode…. The cause… argila?? Pshh NO. For every two steps you take in sand you take one back, oh my gosh it was exhausting. We stopped at another Bedouin site. It belonged to a small family that lived out in the desert in a tent. The older guy that lived there made us coffee and tea, it was delicious. Across from his tent there was a mountain with ancient carvings from who the hell knows when. Toward sunset we climbed a small mountain that smelled like death. I looked down and there was a pile of dead sheep just laying there. Appetizing. The smell was out of this world *upchuck
We were back at the camp site by sunset, it was so serene, and I knew the night was only going to get better from this point on. By 8:00pm the party was already starting. There were other families who had come in from around Jordan to spend time at the site that we were at. Most of them didn’t sleep over, they were stopping in for dinner and dancing and then went their separate ways. After dinner we danced all night until one in the morning. At one point the “DJ” played a song in remembrance of Michael Jackson… we were all waiting for thriller to come on and the Macarena started playing. Bahahaha. I started talking to this one girl named Safa’a, I asked her to teach me the Dabkah (a traditional Arab dance). From that point on we were chatting it up and dancing like crazzzaay. Everyone went back to there own tents.
I met up with a few friends later and headed out to the open desert to look at the stars. Me and 4 other friends climbed this mountain and watched the stars from there. I have never seen so many stars in my entire life. The milky way and all the constellation were unbelievable. We climbed down the mountain and were back in the open desert when all the lights from the camp sight went out at 2am. It was pitch black out. We laid in the sand just looking up at the stars for almost an hour. We entertained ourselves with a genius game called “star spinning.” You look up and focus on one star and spin around as much as you can and then try to find someone and give them a high five. It was beyond hilarious. I haven’t laughed that hard for that long of a time in sooo long.
When I was back in my tent lying in bed I realized it was clearly one of the best nights of my life.
Things couldn’t have been more perfect.