Petra & Wadi Rum

This past weekend at Petra and Wadi Rum was one of the best weekends of my entire life. After our midterms, we left straight away on a 5-hour drive to Petra (one of the 7 wonders of the world). Once we arrived at the Old Village Resort in Petra we had an amazing dinner, swam in the pool, and watched the sunset. The next morning we went straight to explore the wonders of Petra. The architecture of Petra and the history of the old civilizations and lifestyles that date back to as early as 100AD was fascinating. We spent the majority of the day there exploring and learning about the old and new Bedouin cultures. It was a great opportunity to practice my Arabic (including using my Arabic skills to bargain down prices on souvenirs).

Here are some pictures from Petra:

After Petra, we drove another 2 hours to the Wadi Rum red desert (actually the same desert where “The Martian” with Matt Damon was filmed). Once we arrived in the small local Bedouin town, they loaded us onto the back of pickup trucks and drove us out to a small civilization in the desert called the Bedouin Lifestyle Camp. The whole village was no more than an acre in size and our group shared 3 tents to sleep in. They cooked us a classic Bedouin dinner, which means submerging the food in a hole in the sand and cooking it under the ground. We ate the dinner on pillows on the sand dunes around a campfire. We danced, drank tea, and sang to Arabic songs until around 1am. After the whole area cleared out, we all experienced one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments: everyone just laid down or sat in complete silence while we watched the stars that spanned from horizon to horizon.

The next morning we got back on the pickup trucks and drove to many different rock formations, canyons, and sand dunes to explore. Here are some pictures from all of Wadi Rum: