Date: 2005-04-13
From: Wadi Rum

To: Aqaba
Miles today: 0.0

Our bedouin guide left us by ourselves last night because he had to drive some people to Aqaba. We expected a quiet night. It was not to be however. Around 2:00am a car drove up and people got out yelling something. When they got no response they drove off. At least they tried... it took them about ten minutes of starting and restarting their car until it finally ran. They drove for about five minutes and apparently the car broke down again (we found out in the morning that a tire had gone flat and they had no back up, very smart...).After this mysterious visit I slept some more until we got woken up real early by the sun and the cute little dog who suddenly wasn't so cute anymore. It wouldn't leave us alone and kept trying to bite us, our sleeping bags, our shoes, socks... We knew it wasn't allowed in the eating area so we moved our stuff over there and tried to get some more sleep. Our guide showed up with breakfast not too much later though. He had brought a special treat from Aqaba. It was something pickled and pretty sour tasting, very interesting... (that means: 'pretty yukkie').On the trip back to our car we stopped at our guide's house. The guide whose picture I had taken in traditional bedouin clothes in front of his bedouin tent just this morning... he comes out of his house completely changed. Jeans and shirt, and we're off in his rental car. No bedouin clothes for his trip to Syria...When he drops us off at our car we joke about me taking another picture of him. Which I do, it'll make a nice before and after picture ; )We drive around by ourselves to Rum village and plan on walking a bit. It's hot hot hot though and I don't really want to leave the car anymore. We still walk to some ruins but as soon as I find some shade I wait for Opamp to finish his tour. Too hot for me!We decide to do some driving to see more of the sand dunes. A lot of sand is stuck in the crags of the rocky mountains. It reminds me of how the mountains looked in Glacier NP. Except that there it was snow and not sand. Interesting how something so different can look so much alike.Anyway, I took some nice pictures that I probably messed up after taking a picture of two fun road signs on top of each other. One showing a camel, the other a sheep. I opened up my camera to change the film but it hadn't rewound yet, duh!!!Oh well, we continued our way south to Aqaba. Rooske had arranged a posh hotel for us and we enjoyed the luxuries, lazied around and watched tv (why did I watch a French game show???). When it cooled off we went to the private beach, played around in the chilly water and wondered if the jelly fish were dangerous... until we saw a little boy carrying a bunch of them in his hands. I guess they were safe...In the evening we met up with Jeremy, a friend of Rooske. He lives in Aqaba and guided us around the old part of town. He also introduced us to traditional Jordanese desserts, something cheesy with lots of sugar, very interesting... not yukkie but I'm not sure I really liked it.He also introduced us to reportedly the tallest flag pole in the world. It's huge! And so is the Jordanese flag attached to it.Last night I slept in the sand under a starry sky tonight I'm sleeping in a luxury hotel.... what an interesting trip this is.