Call Of The Desert

Immerse in the wonders of Wadi Rum’s vast, dramatic landscape.

- Ellen Clark

WADI RUM! Just the name sounds mysterious. Couple this with miles of golden-red-tinted sand stretching in every direction, camels, Bedouins, violent storms and fiery sunrises, and I’m beyond intrigued. For starters, I love deserts. There’s something about the sand’s surprises that makes me want to investigate further, and the vastness and deceptively uncomplicated landscape calms my soul.

So what is Wadi Rum? one might logically ask. A wadi is a valley, ravine or channel, dry except in the rainy season. The rum descriptor is guessed to have come from an Aramaic root meaning “high” or “elevated.” Also known as “The Valley of the Moon,” this 183,000-acre area of dramatic desert landscape in southern Jordan comprises a range of narrow gorges, natural bridges, towering cliffs, massive landslides, caverns and miles of shifting sand.

Petroglyphs and other archaeological remains attest to 12,000 years of human occupation and interaction with the environment. More recently, it was the place where Prince Faisal Bin Hussein and T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) based their headquarters during the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans in World War I. Much of the 1962 David Lean epic movie, Lawrence of Arabia, was shot at Wadi Rum, declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2011.