Desert Walk

It’s my second and final day in Wadi Rum. No rain today. There was a beautiful sunset over the desert. Tonight, the mountains and sand glow under a full moon. I woke up yesterday in Wadi Musa, the town outside Petra. Wadi Musa translates as ‘Valley of Moses’ and supposedly this is the place where Moses struck a rock to bring out water. Me and a bus full of 20 somethings with their backpacks took the two-hour ride down to Wadi Rum. Khaled, who runs the camp I was staying in–there are apparently 60 Bedouin camps in Wadi Rum–was waiting in the village.

I had said I wanted to hike and he said the tour starts here. He pointed out a tree and some bushes up the side of a mountain. ‘That’s Lawrence’s Spring. Head that way and you’ll find the path. We’ll be waiting for you here.’ Lawrence is T.E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia. So I headed off on my own across the desert to the rocky path up to the spring. Fortunately, there was another group on the path, which made it easier to find.

Coming down, a boy driving a truck said Khaled’s name and pointed to the back for me. This was Omar, Khaled’s 17-year-old nephew. The back had two metal benches and a tarp over the top. Off we went across the sand. We arrived at a spot with a dozen similar-looking trucks and lots of people. He said, “Lawrence’s Spring” and pointed up the mountain. And so it went.

We spent the day driving around to different spots. An arch or a sand dune or a rock outcropping. And up I went. I somehow tweaked my right knee with all the hiking in Petra–I didn’t feel comfortable using metal-tipped hiking poles on the archeological site—and so I was a little slow up and down some of them.

Omar doesn’t speak much English but did make a delicious lunch. Gathering wood from small dead bushes, he built a fire to cook up some tomato and bean stew. Add baba ghanoush, Greek salad, pita bread, fruit and you have a desert feast.

There was a large crowd back at the camp for dinner, but I seemed to be the only person there by myself. I did have a little chat with a woman who worked in Amman with Syrian refugees, especially ones without legal papers. I asked how many Syrian refugees there are in Jordan. She said there are 750,000 legally-registered Syrian refugees in Jordan. I asked for an estimate of how many undocumented Syrian refugees there are in Jordan. She went stone silent. Obviously, she knows an estimate. This is precisely the group that she is working with, but the topic is so sensitive that she wouldn’t say.

After a very cold night in the dessert, the skies were completely clear this morning. Today my guide was Eid Sabah, Omar’s father. We headed off to a remote part of Wadi Rum that isn’t on the standard tourist route. I went for a three-hour walk on the desert floor. Eid Sabah would point me in a direction and then drive past me in the car 20 minutes later. When I caught up with him, he’d point again, and we’d repeat the process.

It was sunny, but not hot. There was something very calming about walking along the desert sand, through the beautiful rock formations. I was reminded that humans are designed for walking long distances. I felt I could have walked for days.

Lunch was another feast. Grilled chicken, tomatoes and onions as the hot dishes. Pita bread, fruit, yogurt, baba ganoush as the cold ones.

Turns out Eid Sabah has ten children. The oldest is 21 and the youngest is 2. He asked how many I have. One.

For my final hike, he took me to a spring that was about an hour walk from camp. In the side of the mountain, down five stone steps in a cave, was a pool. I sat there looking down at the cool water and out into the bright light of the valley.

Walking across the valleys of sand, I fell in love with various rock outcroppings. One stood like a beached ship, it’s prow pointed up the valley towards me. One round rock formation made me think of the Jetsons and the old Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Another reminded me of a cathedral with its soaring folds of rock.

Arriving back at camp, I grabbed the pot of tea and a couple of glasses. There was one woman sitting on the ledge above camp reading. We instantly took to chatting and talked for most of the next four hours. What a delight.

I told her about my sabbatical and she said enthusiastically to tell her all about it as she loves hearing about travel adventures. So I went on for quite a while. After 20-30 minutes of talking about my travels, I decided it was time to switch to her, but we talked about the fact that almost no one in California will get to hear as much about my trip as she just did. I think that people are just too busy and so don’t have the time to sit and listen and talk. Tamara and I talked non-stop for four hours and yes, it’s rare to have that time with people at home. When people ask what it’s like where I’m from I sometimes say “Busy. We have a cultural pattern of busyness.”

Tamara is from Trinidad and works as a librarian for the United Nations. She is currently based in New York but has previously been posted in Addis Ababa. She needs to move to another United Nations site soon and is trying to decide where she’s going next: Santiago, Beirut, Bangkok, Zurich?

She loves to travel: ‘Everywhere in the world is interesting.’ She just was in Beirut for work and loved it there. I appreciated her upbeat attitude and the obvious joy she takes to living.

After saying good night, we walked out into the light of the full moon. I headed off into the desert sand. I told Tamara that I could happily travel for a year. Take the ferry from Aqaba to Egypt. It has been such a treat to be outside of the details of work, to be connecting with interesting people from around the world, to be soaking in the beauty of amazing places on the planet.

I don’t know that I have the ability to bring this mindset to my daily life. Perhaps I can be more adventurous when I travel. And I would like to bring some of Tamara’s enthusiasm and openness to my relationships.