Jordan, Day 8: Wadi Rum, day 2

Calm wake-up. Our guide brings back the South Korean girls to Wadi Rum Village. Today it will be only Marijke and me with Nowas. We start our trip with a check on the camels of his family. I get to know Dana, a very sweet female camel. I always hated #camels for their smell and their unfriendly behavior. Happy to experience it does not have to be true….
Nowas brings us to a canyon to walk through. It is greener than the part of the desert we have seen before. We see little plants and tracks of different animals in the sand. When we show the pictures of the tracks to Nowas he says it’s from a fox and a mouse. He says there are 5 types of mice in this part of the desert. We pick some thyme to make tea for later after lunch.
Today the drives between the sites we visit are a bit longer than yesterday. The next site is absolutely stunning. We climbe up a rock and are rewarded with a view over a valley. It is indescribable… it reminds me of the movie “Dune”. Nowas tells us actually parts of Dune have been recorded here. I hope the pictures can give a slight impression of the magnitude of it… the place is called Wadi Nugra, close to the Saudi border. It even has a huge turtle-rock!!
After enjoying the amazing site at Wadi Nugra, Nowas drives away and we walk down the sand dune to the canyon. When we reach Nowas again, he is gathering dead wood for a fire. We pick some extra thyme and leave for a ride again. We drive through the landscape we saw earlier from the viewpoint at Wadi Nugra.
Nowas stops at a #Bedouin place and shows the goats of his uncle. There is a cute one just born one or two days ago. He explains the baby goats stay with their mothers in a fenced environment until they are strong enough to walk with the herd.
We continue to our lunch place. It is a place high up, but nicely protected from the wind. Nowas says we can climb up for his favorite view. We can’t even imagine how this view could be better than Wadi Nugra. But reaching the top I am surprised with a view that is indeed even more breathtaking than the previous. This is 100% #Dune. I have no problem at all imagining Paul Atreides running from one rock to another to be safe from the giant sandworms. I need to see part 1 again, before the release of Dune part 2 in April this year!!
While we stare at the stunning desert and the border of Saudi, Nowas prepares us a meal in his car kitchen. It is delicious, and so is the tea made with fresh thyme.
We leave Wadi Sabet and the amazing film-landscape with difficulty… our stay st Wadi Rum is reaching its end. Our last stop in Wadi Rum is a natural arch. This arch is easy to climbe on. Of course we do the insta-photo- moment again. Nowas is our private photographer.
Then as a last treat we have an amazing ride through rocky mountains that seem to be sculpted by Gaudi or Dali…of course, again, pictures don’t do right to their beauty… I can’t help fantasizing the wildest stories when I look all those immense, strangely shaped mountains I can see mysterious priests performing all kinds of rituals… I can imagine hidden doors open… or even whole rocks splitting and showing a completely different world in the inside… this environment really has all ingredients for fantasy movies…
Back at the office of #WadiRumNomad we throw our bags in little Kia and after a short goodbye we start the one hour drive to Akaba.
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