Safari on the Valley of the Moon

Wadi Rum is known as the “Valley of the Moon” because the landscape resembles the surface of the moon. Wadi Rum has the tallest mountain in Jordan standing at 1,854 meters (6,083 feet)! The mountain is called Jabal umm ad Dami and translates in English to Mother of the Blood Mountain. On the summit of the mountain when its a clear day, you can even see the Red Sea! The cliffs were formed over millions of years by tectonic uplifts and weathering, creating the rocky cliffs. Wadi Rums cliffs and sands are red because the high amount of iron oxide in the stones and sand

We climbed lots of rocks and sand dunes (some barefoot). Climbing the sand dunes was easier than I thought it would be. We got to the top of all of the dunes, the sand would sink beneath our feet which made it harder. The sand on the dunes was warm but at the bottom it was very hot. My dad and I liked the feeling of the hot sand beneath our feet but Brooklyn and our mom ran into a tent for cover. Afterwards, we started getting small itchy bites and everyone was freaking out because we thought they were bed bugs. Our dad went and checked mall the pillows, sheets, and blankets to see if he could find them and luckily he did not find anything. We kept searching the internet and found a common fly that bites you and leaves small itchy red dots called a Sand Fly. We were happy that they were not bed bugs!

We visited T.E. Lawrence’s house and his monuments in the desert. He was a British soldier who came to Wadi Rum during World War I and learned how the Bedouin people fought. Later after learning, he created a strategy for them to beat the Ottoman Empire who tried to take their land away from them. He is very respected for helping them win and because of that they call him Lawrence of Arabia. At the top of the cliff there were hundreds of little Cairns and even I built a few! Inukshuks are a type of Cairn but Cairns are not Inukshuks.

Our guide pointed out petroglyphs which are carvings in rocks and a way to communicate.

One of the coolest parts was that we stayed in a bubble, its called glamping! The bubble had a quite big bathroom with a shower behind the king sized bed in a separate room. There were two single beds, they had to add one because it’s normally only one single bed. It had a small table with two seats both inside and outside.