Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea, Jordan

 "Wadi" means valley in Jordan, and Wadi Rum is a popular desert area that people also refer to as the Valley of the Moon. 

Before we left Petra, Jason had a cool run in the morning exploring on his own.

As part of our tour package, we were driven to Wadi Rum (about 2 hours from Petra) and stayed in a Bedouin camp there.

Bedouins are indigenous nomadic people whose lives are now mostly tourism based. After paying an entrance fee to the Wadi Rum area, we drove to our particular camp. It seems like there are 100 different camp clusters in the region. Ours had one reception tent, a huge eating area building, and probably about 30 little cabins. Our cabin had a comfortable bed, heater and A/C, plugs, running water with a flushing toilet and a shower. A generator provides hot water during morning and evening times.

We had a 2 hour jeep ride through the sand dunes, which was a riot. We stopped at a tent that served us tea and dressed Jason and I up in traditional Bedouin headscarves and robes. We ran on some fresh dunes and bounced around in the open back of the truck. Although it went faster than I was always comfortable with, the kids were hooting and hollering and laughing and said it felt like a roller coaster ride. The colours of the sand dunes and different rock features were cool.

In front of our cabin

 

Nana and Ava in the back of the truck

Mushroom rock

The red rock powder can be used as a make-up

We were treated to a traditional dinner with the meat cooked in the sand for hours before the buffet. After dinner, we were taught how to do some traditional group dancing (like line dancing). The male leaders were amazing dancers and we did our best to keep up.

Then we saw some spectacular stars before bed.

dancing inside the large restaurant tent after dinner

The next day, we drove to the Dead Sea and stayed a night there at a fancy hotel. Floating in the very salty water was a bizarre feeling. Our hotel experience included mud massage, so some of us got covered in mud before we washed it off in the sea. Pretty unique!

across the sea is Israel

 

Jason went for a run

We went back to Amman and said goodbye to Jordan. Jason was pretty sore and stiff because he got stung by a scorpion while out on his run, but he managed to heal well enough to fly without issue.

Next stop for the mojo family: Albania!