Wadi Rum and Petra (Day 1)

!يا سلام
Wow!
Last night I arrived back to my host family's house from the most incredible weekend I have ever experienced.  My study abroad program CIEE took us students on a trip to red sand dessert of Wadi Rum for one day which was Friday and to the historical city of Petra for one day which was Saturday. I saw sights that nothing I have ever seen can compare with.  From the vastness of Wadi Rum to the intriguing massive sights of Petra.
As the title states I will only talk about day one in this particular blog.  There were so many story-worthy experiences from both days to put them on one blog. I am going to do this blog a little different because I took so many pictures I want to use them.  I will post pictures and tell what is going on. So this is going to be more of a photo album than a blog.

       So all of us students met at the gate of the University of Jordan at 7:30 and left on a couple busses at 8:00 to Wadi Rum.

Wadi Rum Restaurant 

We started driving out of Amman and about two hours out the window view became beautiful.  We were surrounded by dessert land with mountains all around. I don't really know how to explain it, it was neat because of the openness.
Anyways, we arrived in Wadi Rum at around noon and ate lunch at the restaurant pictured on the left. The food was okay but once again it was the view of the vast dessert from the outside patio of the restaurant that made it such an enjoyable meal.  The view I had from the restaurant is shown below.

Restaurant view

After eating lunch we watched a short video on the history of Wadi Rum. It was the most interesting thing of the whole trip (lol).

We then split into two separate groups-- one group went to ride camels and the other group went to ride in trucks.
I was in the Camel riding group first, which I was happy about.  The camel ride was a neat experience.  I was on a tall camel riding through the dessert.






                                                                                                               

camel guide

After the long hour and a half camel we took a break by stoping at a Bedouin camp and drinking chai with them. Then we switched with the other group and got into the trucks.  I loved the truck ride because it moved through a large part of the dessert and I got to see a large amount of the majestic mountains and the sandy desert.  Our first stop in the trucks was a viewing and rock climbing spot. The first picture is me taking a picture of the other students when I climbed up high on the other side. The rock climb was really fun for me because I have never done anything like it before. I have done the little rock climbing walls but it did not come close to this.

Just being a sheik

Looking down on the other rock climbers

After that stop we went to a more historic place and looked at 

ancient writings on one of the rocks.  It was neat but it was not 

really my cup of tea

ancient rock writings

After that we went to a huge sand dune.  There were a couple eager kids that wanted to get to the top that started off running. They quit running after about a quarter of the way up.  It took us about 10 minutes to get to the top of the huge sand dune.  Once we got up there, I went over to a rock cliff and jumped over about 15 feet to the soft sand. I hit the sand and just slider, it was fun.  Once everyone made it to the top we just sat up there and rested for about 10 minutes and enjoyed the view. Then the fun began.  We all one-by-one started to run down the huge hill of sand. I was running and jumping.  It is hard to explain, but you could jump and fall for a long distance and be fine because you would land on the soft sand.  It was one of the funner parts for me. The picture underneath is me on the huge sand dune.

We finally ended the tour by riding to a big rock to sit on and watch the "most beautiful sunset on Earth".  Watching the sun go down and looking at the dark red sand all around was quite amazing. I will give some pictures but it does not quite do it justice. 

But the night did not end with the sunset.  After the sunset we all walked back to camp. The camp consisted of a bunch of 3 person tents on one side and the other side was a social area to eat and socialize.  Right when we got back we ate some food that the Bedouins cooked for us.  After that the night got more festive.  Our Jordanian instructors and Bedouin hosts showed us how to dance with them. I stepped in for the big circle dance.  It was a good experience. After the dancing a few of us were still awake so we gathered around the fire and talked about the wonderful day. Then at about 11:30 it got really cold so we went to bed. 

this was the Bedouin friend that I made at the Wadi Rum camp

To be continued......