Mars, desert and a bubble

We headed to Wadi Rum by driver which was about an hour south of Petra – The Desert of Mountains. This is where many films were filmed to include The Martians, Lawrence of Arabia and Dune (the newest) to name a few. Paul and I hit the sand first thing with a jeep tour to the desert highlights. This desert is a landscape of beautiful red sand surrounded by majestic sandstone and granite mountains of various shapes and sizes. We rode on the back of a jeep on a beautiful day with temperatures in the 70’s, and bounced around like kids in an inflatable bounce house laughing the whole time. I think my internal organs are now located in different parts of my body. We stopped several times to see the vistas, and climb rocks and dunes, each time we were offered tea and food by the Bedouins in their goat hair tents. We had tea at one of the stops and enjoyed the company of tourists from Romania. They were hoot and slipped us some whisky which made the bouncy ride of the jeep more tolerable and even more humorous.

A few times I sat on the rocks or in the sand to take in the atmosphere while Paul climbed up the rocks like a billy goat. I couldn’t believe how silent and still it was here. You hear nothing here except an occasional guide, tourist, camel or a pesky fly that wouldn’t leave me alone.

Besides the expansive desert and rocky mountains, one of the really cool things here were the many ancient rock drawings, Nabatean inscriptions.

We went here for just one night and I splurged on a bubble room. When I get to my bubble I was surprised to see it was air pressured with a double door air lock and made out of plastic. I felt like I was in an inflatable Martian lawn decoration. If I didn’t open the doors one at a time it could deflate into a melted marshmallow. It felt like I was in a space camp or exploration site, even worse, we joked about it being a possible COVID quarantine bubble. Naturally Paul got a big kick out of the whole thing, while he stayed in his spacious tent. At night it was spectacular. I woke up several times to make sure I’d appreciate the stars above me. I was not disappointed. I also went out on my bubble deck at about 5am to take photos and was treated with a large and close shooting star.

At night we were treated to a Bedouin disco with fire, tea, Shisha (Hookah) and a soothing setting by the granite mountain. We smoked Shisha which tasted like vanilla, but I wouldn’t know for sure because I didn’t inhale. Of course, always the contrarian, Paul thought it tasted like anise. It was cool but after a few times at it, we lost interest. Then our Bedouin tea tender (no alcohol here – say what?) got us all dancing. I was admiring his eye makeup and before you know it, he is putting eye liner on me. LOL.

We must be in the desert

The Bubble

Night life in the Desert

The sands of time.......These are the Days of Our Lives