Wadi Rum & Petra

Home to many major film’s desert scenes like The Martian, Dune or Indiana Jones, Jordan’s Wadi Rum desert and Petra were our next adventures after Israel. After our Holy Land tour ended in Israel, we Airbnb’d in the Jewish Quarter and spent the night walking around the outdoor malls of modern Jerusalem. After two weeks of middle eastern food, we thought it would be funny to try the local McDonalds menu. First off, it was a lot more expensive than American McDonalds! But then again the burgers were twice the size.

Leaving Jerusalem, we took a bus in the middle of the night that took us over the border and into Jordan. This was the only time during our whole trip to the Middle East when we felt a little unsure what was going to happen. It took us over an hour to get “cleared” to pass through after sharing our documentation, almost making us miss our bus that took us into Aqaba for lunch. By the way, this was when we met our Jordanian tour guide, who looked and dressed pretty much exactly like Rambo.

We spent night 1 in a chalet deep within the Wadi Rum desert. As you can tell from the photos, it was cold! We had puffer jackets and beanies on pretty much the whole time. We were prepared but it was much colder in the desert than we anticipated.

Our mode of transportation through Wadi Rum was on the back of these old converted trucks. Which were really just seats welded into old truck beds. We held on and braced the wind as we sped through the dunes.

Our guides showed us film locations for the Martian and the new Star Wars movie. Not only movies but history, too. One of my favorite spots was the cave where Lawrence of Arabia stayed during WW1!

After Wadi Rum we made our way on our bus to Petra! Oddly enough, it can snow in this part of the world! It was January, but we didn’t ever think that weather could prevent us from getting through roads. There is one pass to drive over to get to Petra from Wadi Rum and we literally barely made it through the snow storm! Before we settled into the hotel in the town of Petra, we spent the afternoon hiking into ancient Petra – a UNESCO World Heritage site!

Petra was an ancient city built within a narrow canyon that opened into a well protected valley. The Nabataeans people lived in Petra starting over 2,000 years ago and they did a really good job at living in such a dry place. Their canyon walls were lined with pipes and drains to catch water and carefully flow the water into cisterns. Everything is also super well preserved because after the Nabataeans left the city was basically forgotten for hundreds of years. It wasn’t until the 1800’s when the city was found again.

Getting around Petra was no stroll, it was at least a full mile to get through the narrow canyon and into the main city. The canyon was maybe 10-15ft wide and over 100ft tall on both sides. After winding through the canyon we abruptly came upon the “Treasury” (Al-Khazneh) in the photos above. This is where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade says the Holy Grail is held, unfortunately we didn’t get to go inside. In reality, history did think that there was something valuable inside, with bullet holes to prove in the second-story carvings where some idiots tried to break in.

To get to the “Monastery” (Ad Deir), was about a 4 miles round trip hike up steep steps. The trail and view looked oddly like Arches National Park, even with the red rock and snow capped peaks.