I agree with the concerns about India as well. Having once been mugged in San Francisco (by about 15 people), I am always alert to danger. In fact sometimes being so wary can almost ruin the fun. But better safe than sorry.

I have made our guide sound a touch incompetent. In reality the guide we had the first two days was a very interesting character. As we were leaving our camp on the second morning our guide drove slightly out of the way towards a man tending to some goats. He was yelling out to the man to warn him of our approach. It turned out the man was his father. And his father was almost completely blind. It was a very touching moment as the son insisted on giving his father some extra water to get through the long day in the open heat. Unfortunately he also handed him some cigarettes. It seemed everyone in Wadi Rum smoked. We talked to our guide about death. Of course death is difficult anywhere. But we guessed it must be especially difficult in this environment, where families are so incredibly close and burial grounds are passed every day.

We also talked to our guide about marriage. It is traditional that families play a large role in matchmaking and approving who “dated” and married who. It sounded like our guy (26 years old) was rebelling against this system. He claimed to be looking on his own for Miss Right, though the population of eligible candidates was pretty small, especially given he hated to leave the desert. Going into Aqaba or worse Amman, he told us, was incredibly stressful. Just too much activity. We were wondering if he was feeding us a bit of BS until we found out that the guide who owned the camp had actually married a British woman who had come to Wadi Rum to teach English. Her parents now come to the village every year to visit, as he refuses to go to London. Just too much sound, light and movement.

When we returned to camp after our vehicle had ceased being drivable our guide went off to explain to his boss Mehedi that the 4x4 was out in the desert in need of attention. I assumed that a full debrief of the day’s activities would follow and that Mehedi would be aware that we had not climbed the mountain, had pushed the vehicle out of a bush, had spun in circles on the trip back and had walked the last bit into camp. Not that we were upset but I thought his approach would be somewhat conciliatory. I was therefore surprised when he simply asked if we had had a good day. Um, yeah sort of but here’s what happened, although I think you already know.

His first reaction was to say that these things happened in the desert. But to his credit he returned 3-4 times that evening to say how sorry he was. And being a mischievous sort I asked him if he ever read Tripadvisor. Ah, yes he did. Reviews were very important he told us. Well I assured him if we wrote something it would be fair and emphasise that we certainly had had a good time. I can understand his concern. In Lima last year our hotel owner told us that one bad review is immediately noticeable in terms of new reservations. On our final morning Mehedi insisted we not pay our entire bill as we had not climbed the second mountain and the rest of our second day had been somewhat disrupted. This resulted in a rather comical scene where we were insisting on paying and he was insisting we not pay.

The rest of our second night was spent in the dinner tent talking with some Spanish and English guests. The Spanish fellow was ecstatic that Barcelona had defeated Inter Milan in Champions League football earlier in the week. He was very pleased to be able to talk football tactics with someone, even if that someone was from hockey land. Unfortunately our two boys spent the evening trying to entertain a two year old German girl who was being left unsupervised by her parents. I would be very upset if I were spending only one night in a Wadi Rum camp and the atmosphere was being ruined by a screaming two year old. But other guests did not seem to mind as they drank their tea and listened to the music.

The next day would be our third and last day. We were planning on a day long hike. We had wondered if a third day was too much to spend in the desert given our entire trip was only ten days. In a way it was a day too long given what else we could have been doing. In another, it gave us a tiny bit more appreciation of what desert life is like and a better understanding of the people who live there.

Oops. Barcelona beat AC Milan, not Inter Milan. I did know that. Now back to watching hockey.

Still loving this report. I have a 17 year old son and he would have loved that whole day too.

<In a way it was a day too long given what else we could have been doing.>

I think that is the bane of every trip planner and why we all ask so many questions here before each trip.

Wow, a screaming 2 year old tourist in the desert. Unsupervised. You really would think you'd be safe from tantrum-throwing-toddlers in some corners of this planet!

Wadi Rum is a gorgeous desert and it's too bad that the camps in the reserve are nothing special-more like the real Bedouin experience in the Syrian desert outside Palmyra(i.e. charming). It sounds like you made the best of it, however and kept your sense of humor.
Looking forward to more...

Speaking of crime, I can't tell you how many Jordanians have spoken to me about our crime here in the US and how afraid they would be to visit. One young man said he even had serious reservations about going to a family wedding in Miami. Funny, with so many Americans afraid to set foot in the mideast as they have very little violent crime.

Moremiles I can’t tell you how many people tell us we are nuts to go the Middle East (we have been twice). And we are thinking we’re safer in the Middle East than in some of the places closer to home. Actually one of the reasons we want the children to travel is so they can form their own views of other countries and people, rather than listen to some of the craaap they hear from even close family members.

Our third day was to be a simple hike right from the camp. No 4X4, no camels. Just walking. We had a new guide this morning. He was very young and had only been working at the camp for a few months. This was not a surprise. We had arranged our last day to be simple and inexpensive. The guide had only been speaking English for less than a year but his English was pretty good.

We left the camp with a destination in mind where we would have lunch. Walking in sand is surprisingly difficult. We spent most of the morning trying to find hard ground to walk on. We would stop every 45 minutes or so to drink some water. A trip like this makes you realize how dangerous getting lost in a desert would be. Landmarks start looking alike. Visibility gets hazy. It wouldn’t take long to get very, very tired and dehydrated.

I think Mehedi altered our arrangements in one respect, perhaps as a result of the problems we had incurred the day before. Our guide was not carrying lunch. Instead we saw an older guide racing out in a still working 4x4 to set up camp about a mile from where we were hiking. This guy was driving like a rally car driver and very much enjoying himself. Music on. Windows open. There may be drawbacks to being a single male living in the desert. But being able to drive like a maniac looked like one of the benefits. Finally we reached the spot he had set up and another great lunch was served.

Right behind our lunch spot was a giant sand dune. The younger guide, the two boys and I then spent 30 minutes playing on the dune. It felt good to act like a 4 year old again with no one but family members within 5 miles to witness a second childhood. Unfortunately two of us cut our feet on one of the rocks nearby as we were climbing up a rock face. Nothing serious. Just enough to introduce minor limps to our afternoon walk.

At the cook’s suggestions we all climbed into the 4x4 (seven of us) and drove to a different location from which to hike back to the camp. He took us to where someone had built a small series of reservoirs to trap water as it drained down the rocks. The reservoir owner then used the water to irrigate a small garden they had planted. We had seen this setup previously. Where water could be collected it was used to water gardens. The reservoirs would usually be 20-30 feet above the ground and then a pipe with a shut off valve would control the water flow. We found Bedouins literally sprinted up rock faces with their sandals on to show us these reservoirs. They were simply not afraid of heights, slipping, falling … anything. One of the guides told us of being several hundred feet up a rock face with a French climber. The climber froze from fear on his way down and started to cry. The guide had to talk him down. True or not, you could tell the guide was very proud of his mental strength and climbing ability. Especially compared to foreigners who came to the area with expensive, high quality climbing gear. Mind you they also felt very proud that only European 4X4s got stuck in the sand. We hope they don’t someday find out that they can fail on rock faces as well.

We hiked the last couple of miles back to camp. The guide told us we had hiked about 9 miles on the day. I think he was flattering us. But whatever it was it was enough. Our last dinner was the same chicken in the sand spit entrée we had enjoyed the previous two nights. We expected simplicity at the camp and we got it. Basically the same menu for each of the three breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

There was one embarrassing moment at dinner. One of the guides sat beside me and asked me how our day was. I started to answer in some detail until he cut me off and said “I know what you did. I made you lunch. I drove you around.” OMG. He had been our senior guide that day. It is awful to say but at times I couldn’t tell the Bedouins apart. Black robes, tanned faces and beards. They needed numbered uniforms for me to know who was who. Thankfully this guy had a sense of humor. He said he had difficulty telling us apart too.

WOW! Thanks for writing.

cold - what was the accommodation like at the camp?

Hi Elisabeth. We were in a tent that was about 40x15 and then divided in two. So we had a room about 20x15. I never really checked what we were sleeping on. It just felt like a couple of blankets on the ground and then some very heavy blankets and something like a duvet. We were not cold.

They told us to bring a sleeping bag liner. We did and that is what we slept in. The pillows were like what you would find on a couch. Some of the other tents had raised beds. We just had five sets of blankets side by side on the ground. All our bags sat on the ground as well.

When we got home we left our bags in the below zero garage for a couple of days. Just in case we brought any scorpions home.

So three days were complete in Wadi Rum. It was a sad moment for the parents. A short trip was almost over and the highlights were behind us. More specifically we were only 36 hours away from saying goodbye to our daughter again. Her feelings were more nuanced. Goodbye parents and now back to the party in Ankara.

I confirmed with Mehedi at breakfast the directions for returning to the area around Amman. It was a very simple route so my question was more pro forma. But his response woke me up. “You don’t have a GPS?” Hmmm. The city slicker being asked by the desert dweller where his GPS was. Like, who travels without a GPS these days bud? This exchange firmed up for us our future and likely by then fading recollections of Wadi Rum. Beautiful, mysterious, timeless, Tripadvisor, GPS. The contrasts.

We were driven back to the Wadi Rum village, climbed into our car and headed towards the Desert Highway. We were low on gas. Mehedi had offered to give us a 20L container of gas free of charge. It sounded like these containers are brought over the Saudi border (illegally?) for local use. Once upon a time in Scotland one of our golfing partners had put the wrong type of fuel in the rented van. Black smoke soon appeared. The engine soon disappeared. That cost $800 to repair. With that memory in mind I refused his offer with thanks. We found a gas station that also offered somewhat unattractive toilet facilities. And with that we started the three hour drive back to Amman. The question was precisely where were we going? It was Friday morning and our planes departed late Saturday night. We had two options in mind. Back to Madaba. Or to a hotel on the Dead Sea. We started the drive not knowing which option we would select.

Again I am reluctant to criticize Jordan and the infrastructure it can offer tourists. The people are wonderful. Money is short. Conditions for highway maintenance are challenging. But my gosh this highway was rough. With speed bumps every few miles, people crossing the highway and lots of truck traffic it was less than a relaxing ride. Parts of the highway had being repaved in the last couple of years. But those sections had already been badly chewed up by truck traffic. Invariably the left lane (divided highway, two lanes in each direction) was much smoother than the right lane. So many people drove in the left lane. Three hours felt like six hours.

One of the things we have tried to do in the last few years is hand over travel responsibilities to the teenagers so that they can get used to making the decisions (for when they are on their own). So navigating airports, talking to hotel clerks, asking for directions on the street etc have been increasingly up to them. The 17 year old was sitting in the front passenger seat and he had the map. We decided to head to the Dead Sea to make sure the trip didn’t fizzle out in its last hours. We knew we could have fun there. And we would get there by picking the best looking road that crossed over from the Desert Highway west to the Dead Sea.

But our son was having trouble picking a route. And our daughter was grabbing the map and offering unhelpful advice from the back seat as to which road to take. Long story short we ended up going further than we wanted to on the Desert Highway and amidst growing tension entered the southern sections of Amman. In my son’s defense the map was truly awful. And even if the map was clear you couldn’t rely on what appeared to be major roads on the map being much more than dusty trails in reality.

If I had had one rule for this trip it was that we were not going to drive in Amman. We would give the car away before we did that. But we were now doing so. So we pulled into a gas station and asked how to get to the Dead Sea. Jordanians seem to have their road system memorized. This guy didn’t hesitate for 2 seconds. Turn around. Look for this. Turn right. Stay left and you’re there. We did. Forty-five minutes later we were at the Holiday Inn – Dead Sea. Welcome home. What is more Canadian than Holiday Inn? We had called from the highway and they had rooms. When we arrived they didn’t have rooms. Our daughter told the desk clerk we would take anything. The Holiday Inn must have a category of rooms filed under “they look desperate”. They gave us two rooms that were more than acceptable and at lower cost than they had quoted us on the phone.

You're so right about the roads and all those speed bumps! Still, Jordan's roads are a lot better than many others in the world though not well marked, in my opinion.
Your French climber story reminded me of when I climbed somewhat high to watch the sunset then panicked a bit when it was time to climb down-much more difficult!
Loved your description of the maniacal desert driving and your humor-of course, I already knew a bit about your humor before

Looking forward to your experience at the Dead Sea...

Moremiles our experience at the Dead Sea was good (we floated again), awful (I misplaced our car key with some help from the guy at the front counter who insisted on parking our car) and finally expensive (one beer was $12). The car key experience was not pleasant. We spent hours looking for the key and calling the rental car company. Finally it was found hanging with all the other keys at the entrance to the hotel.

We woke up Saturday morning and didn’t do much but eat breakfast and pack. We then loaded up the car and reversed the route we had taken a week before with our driver. We climbed up to the Panorama viewing area and took one final look over the Dead Sea. The teenagers will likely see the area again but I doubt my wife and I will. It was a crystal clear day. It is a very pretty area with rolling hills, though the land itself is desert-like.

We had decided that we would return to Madaba and rent a room at our original hotel (The Black Iris) for the day. The route to Madaba is not that difficult from the Panorama. We came to a fork in the road where it was unclear which way to go. We went right. The area looked nice with a couple of houses here and there. Two kids came running down a driveway, I thought to wave hello. Not quite. They hurled rocks at the car. A couple hit the door just below the front passenger window. The others hit a tire. It was so surprising that at first we didn’t know what had happened. But it only took a few seconds to figure out. So I stopped the car and was considering returning to visit with the kids. I was outvoted (wisely) by the other four. Fortunately it was fairly simple to find the right way out of the area. Soon we were back in Madaba.

The dents on the car were not severe. I am not even sure that the rental car company would have noticed them with the dust on the car. But Odeh our manager told the company we would not be paying for the damage whatever it was. As simple as that. A man came from the company, emailed a picture of the damage back to his manager and informed us that all was well. No charge. By the way we had purchased top up insurance from the rental car company to reduce our exposure to zero. But from our conversations I got the impression that this Super CDW insurance would not have covered rock throwing or other willful acts. Next time we rent a car we will ask exactly what Super CDW covers.

We spent the rest of the day packing, having dinner at the same restaurant we had used for all of our meals in Madaba, and speaking with Odeh. I asked him what the average income of Jordanians is. I was trying to put what we had paid to our drivers into some perspective. He guessed that the average monthly income was about 400 Dinars or $600. And he said that was about half of what a person needed to live. The rest came from favours here, deals there, referrals etc. People just found a way. And some people have significant wealth tied up in land, handed down through generations. He guessed that the empty lot beside the hotel (about three North American housing lots wide) was worth 1.5M Dinars.

Finally it was time to leave for the airport (12:30 am). Again we all stuffed ourselves into a small car. The original plan had been to return the car to the airport. Thank goodness we didn’t try that. The road from Madaba to the airport is run down and very difficult to follow. To Grassshopper’s point at the start of this report, we found the departure hall much more “normal’ than the arrival hall. It seemed like almost a regular airport. The Lufthansa agent told us that the 14 year old and the 17 year old were showing as “Star Alliance elites” on his screen. That qualified them for entrance into the Lufthansa lounge with one guest each. This was rather hard to believe. But the two boys went rather proudly into the lounge with mother and sister while I waited outside. After 30 minutes it was time to say goodbye to our daughter as she had to go to a different gate. She stood against the wall waving until we boarded. I don’t even like typing this. It’s too difficult saying goodbye (we’re lucky – people do have worse problems). But she’ll be home in a few months. Unfortunately it will be for just long enough to change her clothes and leave again for Tunisia.

When we arrived in Frankfurt it was snowing and visibility was very poor. We took the train back into town as we had an eight hour layover. We spent most of the 8 hours fearing our flight to Ottawa would be cancelled, as many flights already had been. But our flight left just a bit late and we were home on time.

I really appreciate those of you who have followed this story along. It makes it easier to write knowing someone is reading.

Oh no, another rock throwing incident-sorry you experienced this again and this is the area that we also had a run in, not far from Madaba.

All in all, it sounds like a good trip and your daughter's departure made me teary too....her Arabic will probably be great(and French too if she doesn't speak it already) after time spent in Tunisia.

Thanks for writing!

It sounds as though the roads and signage have deteriorated significantly since we were there in 2008....although since we arrived in Jordan from Cairo perhaps we were merely impressed with how much better Jordan was!

Thanks for posting the report - is Iceland next? I see you're posting on a KEF-YYZ thread. My family is Icelandic Canadian I spent two weeks there - long trip report if you click on my name.

What a great report! I know many say this but most times I disagree.... This would be a good read in the NYTimes travel section. I know I will never travel the way you do; I'm too lazy and have become a bit spoiled. But I love reading about your trips and wish your family lived next door! Thank you for taking the time to share it!

Now I am off to take an Aussie colleague sightseeing in San Francisco for the day. I hope we don't get mugged by 42 locals!

Great ending to a great report!

Great TR! Looking forward to the next....

Moremiles I almost teared up when you said you did. We better stop talking. Elizabeth I remember your trip report because of your luggage. My wife has lost her luggage twice and my golf clubs showed up at the end of a golf trip to Scotland. Yes we are going to Sweden, Norway and Iceland in August. But we will be on a hiking trip for three of the five days in Iceland. So I am not sure how much we will see apart from the volcano that erupted in 2010(?).

Grassshopper you’re fine as long as you don’t stroll into Hunters Point like I did. Keep up your work travels. Hey, how about a trip report? In fact how about a trip report like Thursdaysd. She writes the best trip reports on Fodors I think.

Fra Diavolo I hope you get to Jordan and to India. Maybe you’ll see Wayne Gretzky and some polar bears in Dehli.

Loved your report - thanks again for posting it. Have a great time in Iceland!