Welcome to the A-Z Guidebook Link Up. If you would like to join, read the A-Z Guidebook tab at the top of the blog and write a travel post relating to the letter of the month.
*TIFFIN may be travelling but there is no stopping A-Z! This month:
W or Wander
I’ve written before about how my desire to visit an ice cream shop in Damascus being the genesis for an entire trip to the Middle East in 2010. As part of this holiday, we stayed overnight in a Bedouin camp in the desert of Wadi Rum in Jordan. Also known as the Valley of the Moon (Wadi/Valley, Rum/Moon), before we visited, I’m ashamed to say I didn’t even know what Wadi Rum was.
Full of spectacular red deserts vistas, ancient petroglyphs and huge rounded monoliths, it is not dissimilar to visiting central Australia. The landscape, and the rounded jebels in particular, have an other worldly feel to them. This has made the area very popular with film makers. If you’ve seen any recent science fiction at the cinema, you’ve seen Wadi Rum.
Turns out, Wadi Rum was also Lawrence of Arabia territory. He travelled trough the valley several times during the Arab Revolt in 1917. Beautiful vistas and living with the locals is all very well but it’s T E Lawrence’s links to the region that have provided me with one of my favourite photos of all time…
Just sneaking this second photo in under the banner of ‘Hosts Privilege’.
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Wadi Rum reminds me of the time my SIL was overseas and told us she was going to visit Petra and Wadi Rum. We asked if they were a couple she had met! Ha! Love the supermarket photo.
What a great story! Love the photos too. I guess Jordan is still alright to visit, but I’d have a difficult time exploring much of the Middle East right now. Sad to say.