The Bedouins leave behind them every extraneous comfort and go and live in the desert, in the very arms of starvation, that they may be free. The Middle East in popular Western culture is very much a picture postcard land of spacious, endless deserts where one might expect to find herds of camels gathered round oases, tended by w ise looking Arabs in long robes. In fact, it wasn't until after 17 months in Palestine that I finally found myself in a real desert. Wadi Rum is an enormous desert valley, two miles wide, located about 30km east of the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba.
Huge rock faces rise from the endless sand.
Lawrence's Well, a first century Nabataean temple, and various examples of Thamudic and Kufic graffiti and rock art. Yet, the attraction of Wadi Rum is the desert. The sense of space is immense and the clear desert air telescopes the distances involved, making what looked like a 15 minute walk into a trek of an hour or more. The canopy of stars that hung over us at night were shocking to those of us who live in smog-filled towns and cities. Silence naturally replaces conversation, even amongst groups of hikers, a reflection of the presence of the place.