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4th December 2002 Over the last month the beach has been incredibly quiet but, with the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid, that was about to change. We had been warned by Rakad that the beach would turn into a tent city and rather than disappear under a swarm of people, we decided to run for the safety and solitude of the desert. Joining us were Tanja and Frank, a Dutch couple travelling in their wonderful 30 year old ex-army Land Rover ambulance. Tanja and Frank spent the first night camped out near the Kharaz rock arch, while Richard and I continued on to Disi village and Ahmed's brother Abdul Aziz's camp (Click here for further information about the camp) - one of the best camps I have seen, enclosed on three sides by the sandstone rock that is characteristic of Wadi Rum (the heat coming off the rock after a day baking in the sun was incredible - just like a giant radiator) and with beautiful views across the desert plain - the mist rising off the sand early the following morning was just stunning. We had arranged to meet Frank and Tanja the next day and also expected Umberto, our Italian diving friend from Turkey, to arrive some time in the morning with Jafar, a Jordanian friend and guide. Indeed we did meet Umberto and Jafar on the outskirts of the village, standing next to Jafar's car - it was refusing to start until Jafar resolved the problem by beating the fuel pump with a rock. Abdul Aziz had arranged for us to meet Sheikh Naef, the head of Disi village - of particular interest to us as he knew about Captain Shakespear. Sheikh Naef's father had come to Jordan from Saudi Arabia and had created Disi and Rum villages and encouraged tourism in the area - Disi seems to be the main settlement, surrounded by the smaller villages of Rum, Tuwaisa, Ghal, Mesheer and Twail. It was Sheikh Naef's father who had provided the camels for the making of Lawrence of Arabia; and after several rounds of Arabic coffee in the Sheikh's tent we were taken through the olive groves at the back of the house to be shown rock carvings of King Abdullah and Lawrence - supposedly created by a member of Lawrence's caravan that had passed through the area. Then we were off again, racing to beat the sunset; another wonderful night spent at a much smaller camp, nothing more than a bait char, far out in the sand.
The cooks at work! The next day we met with another man in Disi who had heard of Shakespear - he confirmed what we knew, that Shakespear had travelled through Jordan as part of his trans-Arabian expedition and had passed through the Rum area. I was intrigued to discover that Shakespear, who is virtually unheard of in the UK, is relatively well known in Jordan - although, as Richard pointed out, 100 years ago the arrival out of the desert of an Arabic speaking Englishman would have been pretty big news. A change of scene - out into the desert west of Quweira to a place that Jafar wanted to show us and that is little seen by tourists. A very different landscape to that in Wadi Rum - stony desert and much more exposed. The next morning we travelled a further 10 miles to high ground overlooking an area that Jafar calls 'Valley Dreams', with dramatic views across Wadi Araba to the mountains of Israel. Time to head back to Aqaba as Unberto had to catch a flight to Amman; but not before we had stopped in Quweira. Tanja and Frank decided to go on to Aqaba ahead of us and shortly after our arrival in Quweira Jafar's car decided it could go no further. Not even the combined might of Jordanian, British and Italian mechanical skills could get the thing started and after pushing the car half a mile through the streets, being followed by an ever increasing gang of small boys, we realised that the problem was terminal. A passing grocery truck was enlisted to tow the car to the house of a friend of Jafar, Eid, where we settled down for several glasses of tea. Of course, as we were soon to divcover, behind bad luck comes good luck.... |
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