all the while, we awoke to an amazing day! I was the first awake in camp (having been awake most of the night - that delicious tea!). Joshua was the next to wake. He sat up in his sleeping bag and stretched, looking around to see if there were any other eyes open. I smiled at him and he smiled back, sleepily, remembering his mother's admonition of the night before to be very quiet unless the sky was very bright in the sky. That was definately not the case - the sun was barely up. It was only about 6:20 a.m. Joshua asked me if he could have a sesame seed biscuit from the night before and I said yes. He took one from the bag and left the camp enclosure to go play quietly on the sand dunes. I decided I'd had enough of my sleeping bag, too, and followed him out there.
The sand was so cold! I was surprised by that. It was wonderful watching the sun finish its rising standing on the top of the sand dune in the nearly complete silence!The morning proceeded quietly enough. One by one we all awakened, and eventually ate our simple breakfast of boiled eggs and pita bread with "triangle" cheese and jam. (Triangle cheese is a processed, spreadable cheese very common in Europe and the Middle East, usually eaten at the morning meal.) Ali, our host's son and overnight guard awakened and made us fresh tea, then headed back to Rum for the morning.
How happy we all were to see the day come! It meant climbing, hiking, playing and exploring our immediate area. We found 2 fairly recently eaten sheep, a goat's hind leg, lots of desert beetles, and lots of giant rocks to climb. My sister's boys (Joshua and David) are fearless climbers, and they made us all a little nervous as they scampered up rocks to heights of 30 ft. or more! They needed help a time or two descending, but all was well.
In the late morning, before it got too hot, we all went for a walk. The kids didn't want to go very far, but I walked a ways down some 4x4 tracks that led east of our camp. I followed them to the top of a hill (read "sand dune") that afforded an amazing view of Wadi Rum - more than we could see from our camp which was in a slight valley. I had only taken my SLR (actual film) camera on this walk, so I have no pictures of that wonderful view to post. :-( I was surpised by how much vegetation there is - lots of little bushes and tiny flowers springing right out of the sand. The bushes lose most of the their color by late spring, but there is always at least a little green, I'm told. Surprising, yes?
The rest of the day was occupied with more of the same - climbing, playing in the sand, reading in the shade, drinking LOTS of water!
Our camp under the overhang of this huge rock!
The great dune just outside our camp. The pinker sand is loose, just as one would expect it to be. The lighter sand is totally dry and very hard-packed.
David and Joshua playing on our dune...
David's artwork - drawn with a light-colored rock. He had just learned the phrase "artist's canvas" and used it to describe his work.
1 comment:
Glad to hear you had such a great trip to Wadi Rum. Thanks for sharing! When are you off to the water park?
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