"Why is the rum gone!?"--Captain Jack Sparrow

Wadi Rum, that is! (Haha, I am so clever.)

Wadi Rum

Last weekend, I went on an overnight trip to southern Jordan to explore Wadi Rum--the desert valley made famous by the film Lawrence of Arabia.  It amazes me that a place with so little flora and fauna can be so unbelievably gorgeous.  We were there for a mere 24 hours, which was just enough time to get a taste of the area's beauty before being whisked back to the hustle and bustle of Amman (and midterms, yuck).  The most surprising part of the trip for me was realizing that the term "desert" can indicate quite a wide array of landscapes.  Last summer in Egypt, I went on a trip to Siwa (a small oasis town near the Libyan border in the middle of the Sahara) where the desert takes the form of vast, sweeping sand dunes for miles and miles all around.  Wadi Rum looks absolutely nothing like that.  Instead, it consists of flat, packed earth stretching as far as the eye can see dotted with areas of loose, drifting sand and enormous, wind-withered rock formations.  It was simply stunning.

The first afternoon in Wadi Rum, we all piled into the beds of old, rickety pick-up trucks and zoomed around the desert in a generally unsafe but very entertaining fashion.  We stopped at various points to clamber all over the aforementioned rock formations and drink in the expansive views from the higher vantage point and, later, to watch the sun set behind the distant mountains.  After it got dark, the old, rickety pick-ups dropped us off in a "Bedouin camp" (aka a super touristy, super cliche, not at all realistic recreation of a real Bedouin camp with a full buffet) for the night.  The high point of evening was not the camp itself, but walking out into the desert to lay under the stars and contemplate life.  Perfection.

Clambering on rock formations in an unsafe manner.

Me and some desert.

Sunset

The next day, after waking up to the sun streaming into my Bedouin tent, the moment came that I have been anxiously awaiting since the minute I first considered traveling to the Middle East.  I RODE A CAMEL.  Her name in Arabic was something that sounded sort of like "Gouda"... you know, like the cheese.  I felt a little weird about that, so I renamed her Eleanor.  She was perfect (and pregnant!!).

My partner-on-camel, Gabby, with Titan, Eleanor's esteemed husband.

I loved absolutely everything about camel-riding--the sun on my back, the slow lurching movement, the faint sound of Arabic music emanating from our guide's cell phone.  Throughout the ride, I was alternatively reminded of the McKinley Middle School rafting trip (?!) and concerned that the sand people (a la Star Wars) might stage an ambush as any moment.  Without dispute, it was one of the most beautiful, peaceful, self-contemplative experiences of my life (which is probably why it reminded me of the rafting trip).  It only fell short of perfection because I felt a little awkward that our guides walked along next to us for three hours while 85 American college students rode their camels.  Womp womp.

Ahmed and Ibrahim (our guides), Eleanor, and I
after the arduous journey.

And now a brief round-up of other news:
-If you've been following the news coming out of the Middle East at all, you may have seen that the protests in Amman became violent for the first time last Friday, resulting in one death and approximately 100 injuries.  Never fear, I was in the middle of the desert when all of this was going down and am perfectly safe.  If you are interested, I recommend this post from my friend Betsy's blog for a fair, straightforward account of what happened.
-Yesterday was my 21st birthday!  It was pretty low-key because we're in the middle of midterms, but it was still lovely because my host mom made me a delicious chocolate cake, the whole family sang me "Happy Birthday" in French and English (but strangely enough, not Arabic?!), and a couple of the neighborhood CIEE girls showed up to study for our Islam in the Modern Context midterm toting a box of my new favorite Jordanian desert--ma'amoul. 
-Next week is my spring break and in just over 24 hours I will be on my way to Turkey!  We're going to hang out in Istanbul for a couple of days and then head south to Olympos to stay in TREE HOUSES.  I had been planning to go to Syria and Lebanon, but recent developments caused me to scrap that plan.  Safety first and all that jazz.  I'm disappointed, but the tree houses will undoubtedly make up for it.  Stay tuned!