Tuesday, April 11th, 2023 Queen Victoria, Aqaba, Jordan
Updated: Jul 4, 2023
We’ve spent the last few days steaming north up the Red Sea, and yesterday we entered the Gulf of Aqaba – a small offshoot that stretches northeast, at the head of the gulf lies the city of Aqaba, the only port in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The weather has turned quite cool and, amazingly, there is even the chance of some showers. Aqaba is in a unique location; it sits at the southern tip of Jordan and the part of the coast that belongs to Jordan is only a few miles wide. From the front of the ship we could see Egypt to our west, Israel to our northwest, Jordan to the north, and Saudi Arabia to our east – the borders are all within a few miles of each other. We visited Aqaba 6 years ago and took the tour to the ancient city of Petra, this time we’ve opted to visit the desert landscape of Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum, also known as Valley of the Moon, is a wide valley cut into the limestone and granite mountains. T.E. Lawrence aka “Lawrence of Arabia” passed through this area several times during the Arab Revolt of 1917. The valley has also been used for many movie scenes, especially Sci-Fi films like “The Martian” – a couple of Star Wars movies were also shot here. Our excursion started with a tour through the city of Aqaba – well at least that’s what the brochure said. Instead, we got a 15-minute drive around the container terminal and foundations for some new buildings, followed by 15-minutes driving around hotels – we were supposed to get a stop at the Arab Revolt Square, but it never happened. During this 30-minute period the guide might have uttered a few sentences in very broken English. We were getting a bad feeling about this tour. Eventually we headed north out of Aqaba and the road began to climb into the mountains. The scenery along this major highway is quite spectacular with limestone mountains rising steeply on both sides; the mountains are streaked with dark bands of granite that rise at severe angles creating strange hillside patterns. I remembered some of the geological background from the guide on our previous trip (this road is also used to go to Petra), which was just as well because the guide on this trip did not say a word. After about 45 minutes we turned east into Wadi Rum. My first impressions did not match the image I’d built up from various descriptions I’d read; I was expecting a steep sided valley with high mountains and sheer cliffs – instead, Wadi Rum appeared to be a large open desert with immense rock formations off in the distance. It reminded us very much of the western US deserts and national parks – like Monument Valley. Our guide informed us that our first stop would be at the visitor center, about 30 minutes away. The visitor center consisted of a few small, recently built, structures – restrooms and a couple of shops. A viewpoint was located about 100 yards from the visitor center, and it provided excellent views of the “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” rock formation. Our guide had wrongly attributed the naming of this structure to T.E. Lawrence – he wrote a book called the Seven Pillars of Wisdom (which has no connection to the rock formation), but it appears that the rock structure was renamed to try and drum up tourism. Unfortunately we were only allotted 10 minutes at the visitor center, which was not really enough time to make a trip to the restroom and dash over to the viewpoint. The Seven Pillars were indeed magnificent, but back on the bus the passengers were livid at being rushed around this great attraction – while we’d sat on the bus for half an hour driving through the “sites of Aqaba”. Lunch was served at one of the 200+ “luxury” camp sites in Wadi Rum. On the way to the camp we passed through small villages that were an absolute shambles; graffiti sprayed concrete houses, broken down cars with various car parts all over the place, and garbage everywhere. I realize the inhabitants were not wealthy, but these places were a disgrace – especially in the middle of the so-called “environmentally protected zone”, it’s also designated a UNESCO World heritage site. Thankfully the villages were few and far between. Wadi Rum sells itself as an “eco-tourism” destination and judging by the number of camps we saw it appears to be doing quite well. The camps consist of various types of permanently set up tents, some shaped like bubbles, and also some have rooms built into the cliff side. Our bus pulled off the small road and onto a gravel track that opened onto a large open desert with spectacular mountains in the distance. A few small hills dotted the area to the right of the desert, and the Captain’s Camp, our designated lunch spot, was tucked into the hillside. The camp consisted of several bubble tents (with more under construction), a few square shaped tents, several rooms built into the cliffs, a large central kitchen with attached eating tent, and an open fire pit area. It was very rustic. We had been promised a traditional Bedouin greeting along with tea; instead a rough looking chap was roused from what he was doing, and he pointed us in the direction of the eating tent. The tent was very large but quaint with low rickety tables and chairs sat on Arab style carpets, a few camp cats roamed about. Some of the chairs were too wobbly and nails protruded from some of the tables – nothing we couldn’t work around. We were the first of several Cunard groups to arrive, we had the pick of the rickety tables – but had to wait a bit before the lunch was ready. While we waited a chap came in and pointed to a pallet of plastic water bottles – being a tad thirsty we took the hint. Eventually I walked over to the kitchen, a really unique place constructed of limestone “molded” into a large room with a central barbecue surrounded by low walled “serving areas”. The whole thing somehow reminded me a bit of the Fred Flintstone house. Various prepared salads, breads and humous were laid out in the serving areas – partially covered with plastic. Dubious meats were being cooked on the central barbecue. There were flies everywhere. I grabbed a few pieces of pita bread, a scoop of humous, and passed on everything else. Given our shortened lunch period, we had a bit of time to explore the camp. My “quaint and rustic” initial impressions were confirmed – the camp did not appear to have many current guests, though I did see some Japanese tourists checking in – dragging their high-end suitcases across the sand to their cliff house. The whole place felt a bit like a disused movie set. I was disturbed and dismayed to find live electrical cables just lying on the surface of the sand, splices wrapped only with insulating tape – I guess they have pretty loose building codes in Wadi Rum.
We headed out of Wadi Rum and our guide continued his vow of silence; he stopped us at an old broken-down train, but I could not understand whether it was used in a recent BBC documentary, the original Lawrence of Arabia film or had in fact been used by Lawrence during the Arab Revolt of 1917 – I don’t think the guide was quite sure either. Back on the main road the guide insisted we stop at a tiny roadside shop, this after he’d explained how it was OK for Muslims to break their fast during Ramadan if they were traveling more than 60km from home. No one on the bus understood why we were making this stop; I think 2 passengers got off to take pictures of a broken-down shack – then I looked into the shop, and I could see the guide having coffee and chatting with his friends. We waited 20-minutes for the guide to finish his coffee. Back in Aqaba we made an unscheduled stop at a ruined castle, most people stayed on the bus. I joined a handful of people as we followed the guide all the way around the perimeter of the castle, avoiding the dog poo, looking for the entrance, only to end up near to where the bus had parked to gain entry. I don’t think the guide had been to this castle before, he offered no explanation or description of the castle or it’s history. Overall I think this was the worst Cunard shore excursion we’ve ever taken; we’ll be visiting the tour desk on the ship tomorrow to give our feedback and ask for a refund.
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