The first day started off with a three hour camel ride in Lawrence’s old stomping grounds, Wadi Rum. Yes, camel riding is the iconic Middle Eastern experience (not to mention Lawrence’s preferred method of transportation) but believe you me, we could have lived without the angry, farting camels and all the leg and back pain associated with being perched atop them for three hours.

The above description come courtesy of a couple of best friends studying the Arabic language – who took some time off to visit the desert T.E. Lawrence described in his famed ‘7 Pillars of Wisdom‘ as ‘Vast and echoing and god-like.‘

A landscape whose plains are challenging by camel as its numerous jagged and jutting rock structures are for rappelling and ‘trad climbing‘ . The latter explained by Ben Heason in his RockRun.com post entitled ‘Tales from Wadi Rum:’

Whilst the climbing is often of a serious nature, there remains an air of convenience when climbing in Wadi Rum. More akin to alpine climbing than UK cragging, Wadi Rum offers some long and memorable outings, of all grades, but without the arduous approaches, slogging up long steep hills so often associated with alpine climbs…

… After a couple of days familiarising ourselves with the climbing style, which is often of a slightly crumbly nature, repeating delightful classic shorter routes such as Inferno (E2 5c) and The Beauty (E2 5b, 5 pitches) we decided to go for our first big route of the trip – Inshallah Factor …

After repeating the super classics of Merlin’s Wand (E1 5b, 5 pitches), Star of Abu Judaidah (E2 5b, 7 pitches), Les Rumeurs De La Pluie (E2 5c, 3 pitches) and the less traveled, run-out and technical Neige Dans Le Desert (E5 5c/6a, 7 pitches) my appetite for a return trip to Barrah Canyon had been sufficiently whetted.

…  I have rarely had such a feeling whilst climbing, of elation and fear combined, and for such a lengthy period. For almost the entire day I remained petrified, yet in my element at the same time, thriving on the experience.

Of course one not need be an expert climber to enjoy some if the heights and sights offered in this amazing landscape.  An experience nicely described by this GW student of Arabic and history:

The above picture of the Rock Bridge is one of the famous sites at Wadi Rum because it forms a natural bridge. To climb up it, we had to scale the face of the rock to the right of it, which was an exercise in conquering your fear. The nearly vertical climb up was not for the faint of heart, and I would be lying if I said it was easy. Once atop, I quickly walked across the bridge and descended (which was even more difficult) to the safety of the ground below. On the way down, as I’m slowly making my way, some Bedouin tour guide is calmly and confidently walking down the rock face as if it’s nothing. It was a pretty funny sight: I’m doing a crab walk next to someone walking normally.

Uncomfortable with climbing? Not a problem, there’s always camping:

We stayed the night in the Bedouin camp and traveled to Petra the next morning. What a spectacular place. Words don’t do justice to treasure trove of amazingly preserved – Beholding the World

And while the ‘tent’ accommodations may not be entirely authentic Bedouin, it certainly makes for an entertaining experience:

Moving along in the afternoon we went to a “Bedouin camp” in Wadi Rum. Obviously most people visiting Wadi Rum want to spend the night in a “Bedouin tent” are not the authentic homes of the Bedouin, but are erected for the tourists. It is nevertheless a special experience to sleep out in the desert, several of them have “amenities” like toilets and showers.

… I sleep with socks, gloves and my jacket and hood on. The bed is just full of sand, as we had to change tents last minute due to the kerosene spillage…it was quite cold and the bed very uncomfortable but it beats sleeping on the ground. Thank god i only had to walk once to the bathroom before going to bed, but it was a pain to have to walk the distance through sand … – Judie’s Travels

Sure it gets a bit chilly at night, but there’s nothing like seeing Wadi Rum for the moonscape that it is … by way of full lunar illumination:

Last weekend I went to Wadi Rum and Aqaba for a conference sponsored by the Rotaract of Amman-West. It was incredible! Wadi Rum is a desert canyon area, and Aqaba is the little bit of coast that Jordan has with the Red Sea. We got down to Wadi Rum after the sunset unfortunately (it is supposed to be spectacular), but it was close to a full moon which was also incredible. We stayed at a camp called “Beit Ali” and went up to the top of the hill for a breathtaking view of the moonlit desert.  – Greg Sheppard’s Blog

Personally, I’m conflicted – as I found myself more impressed with Wadi Rum than Petra after my first visit to Jordan in my post: Wadi Rum: vast and echoing and god-like, magically haunted.

“… the award-winning sustainable tourism and eco-tourism projects, which are helping us to both protect and promote the things that are most precious to us …

… From Yarmouk in the north to the southern mountains of Aqaba, these parks will create wildlife corridors and sanctuaries for endangered plants. They’ll be looked after by local communities, who know the landscape better than anyone, and will offer visitors unique cultural experiences, …”

… said Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah while addressing hundreds of CEOs and travel industry leaders this past Tuesday her keynote address at Conde Nast Traveler’s 2nd Annual World Savers Congress in New York.

For a description of one of these “sustainable ecotourism projects” one need only visit my recent post about the Jordan’s initiative to re-invent the Shaumari Reserve.

Of course, there’s more to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan than eco-tourism, as Her Majesty enumerated while promoting the Middle East an attractive travel option for prospective tourists of all ilks:

• “If you’re looking for a place to relax, the Dead Sea will make you feel more alive than ever,” she said. “It’s the lowest point on earth, with the highest oxygen content in the world… and is home to the region’s biggest spa.”
• “If you want adventure, you can abseil down waterfalls, paraglide off sandstone crags, navigate Red Sea reefs, then cook supper deep in the desert sands of Wadi Rum,”
• “If you’re a history buff, we’ve got Roman ruins and desert castles from the Umayyad times to explore, and our famous Nabataean city of Petra, carved out of red stone cliffs – where Indiana Jones’ escapades ended when he found the Holy Grail.”

Yes, this is sort of a fluff piece … but having been to Jordan twice … all I can do is verify that what Queen Rania states is true … in fact this very blog is a testament to that.

That and I was just speaking to a neighbor who was going to the Middle East on business … so hopefully he reads this after bending his ear all afternoon about how he should take an extra week to experience the journey that is Jordan.

Here are some related articles on the above topic:

• Keeping Up With Conde Nast Traveler’s 2nd Annual World Savers Congress – Traveling the Green Way
• HuffingtonPost – Can Travel Change the World?
• Queen promotes Middle East as attractive tourist destination – Jordan Embassy to the US
• Jordan Times – Queen promotes Middle East as attractive tourist destination
• CNT’s World Savers Congress: Shout-Out to Fellow Travel Bloggers
• Update Blog – Conde Nast Savers Congress – Day’s Agenda
• Diplomats, Environmentalists, and the Power of Travel – Nerd’s Eye View

Update – 30Sep08 – So How WAS that World Savers Congress Anyway? You can ask Matt Damon whose YouTube video is posted over at Conde Nast Traveler’s on Concierge.com.

According to an article about the renovation in the Jordan Times (JT), Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) Director General Yehya Khalid is quoted to say:

“The work will not be restricted to maintenance and improving facilities, but will focus on creating a new concept for the reserve as a breeding centre and attracting specialised visitors to an ecological environment, …

… Currently, the reserve’s facilities for animals and [for] visitors are over 30 years old, so they are subject to collapse and unsafe, which forced the RSCN to close the reserve to visitors for this year …”

The Shaumari reserve is a Jordanian nature reserve situated close to the town of Azraq, approximately 62mi (100km) east of Amman.It is a regionally important reserve created in 1975 by the RSCN as a breeding center for endangered or locally extinct wildlife. The 13 square mile (22 square kilometer) reserve is a thriving protected environment for some of the most threatened species of animals in the Middle East.

in 1978, eight animals were flown over from the World Breeding Herd at the Phoenix Zoo in Arizona, and by 1999 the herd grew to over 200 animals, some of which have already been released into the wilderness of Wadi Rum.

According to the JT, maintenance and renovation work at the reserve was made possible through a JD250,000 ($353,257 USD) agreement signed between the Ministry of Environment and the RSCN on Wednesday.

Wadi Rum speaks a beauty that is universally understood – as demonstrated in this at SobreTurismo, a Spanish language travel blog whose title in English simply reads “Jordan: The desert of Wadi Rum.”

Berenice Lomont, the author of the article, expresses the universality of Wadi Rum’s “vast and echoing and god-like” magic in a sentiment coined here, “if Petra is Jordan’s gold, then Wadi Rum is its silver” as the travel blogger writes:

When we think of Jordan, the spectacular lost city of Petra comes directly to the memory, but this country offers us more, much more, so it is worthwhile to venture into [Jordan's] wonderful … Wadi Rum.

Located in southern Jordan … we are surprised by their reddish sands, the lack of a classic horizon, for its mountainous structures rounded by the action of continuous wind.

Citing Wadi Rum as the location of the films Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Red Planet (2000), the authoress goes on to describe the recently build visitor center where one can hire guides and 4×4 vehicles and …

… for the more adventurous there is the option of multi-days tours via Dromedary camels.

Ms. Lomont goes on to write of the places one often stops to admire while in Wadi Rum including (translated):

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: the most famous mountains of Wadi Rum, which owes its name to book TE Lawrence was inspired during their stay here. His vision is really overwhelming, seems out of a fairy tale.

The stone bridge of Burdah: this is an impressive natural arch 35 metres high. One of the highest in the world. Spectacular and unique.

Cave paintings (petroglyphs): It is said that this desert is a huge blackboard full of rock art made by the civilizations that inhabited (Tamudo and nabatea). A symbol that certainly deserves a visit.

The writer also recommends Jordan’s highest mountain, Jebel Um Adaami … suggesting while its 6000 foot (1830 meter) elevation doesn’t pose too much difficulty, the difficult path is best traversed with a hired guide.

Berenice ends her post as poetically as she begins describing a once-in-a-lifetime experience that transcends all languages, borders and cultures when she opines:

It is an enigmatic place, haunted, is so enormously beautiful that for centuries has left mute those who until then had been approached…. And without a doubt I am one of them.

She’s right, of all the sites I’ve visited in Jordan – Wadi Rum is my favorite as well as reflected in the following past posts:

• Wadi Rum: vast and echoing and god-like, magically haunted
• Two bloggers experience Wadi Rum to Aqaba, just like Lawrence
• The Hidden Petroglyph Ledge, Wadi Rum, Jordan
• Visiting God in a 1978 Toyota Landcruiser

That’s what I wrote last November in my post ‘Wadi Rum: vast and echoing and god-like, magically haunted.’ I meant every word of it.

Which is why I enjoyed these to posts on the same – first from Whiskey Tango Farley – call letters to an acronym which I’ll let someone else explain in some other context.

Which is also why we read Alden Pyle’s post “Aqaba, Wadi Rum, Dana, Dead Sea, oh my!” he was citing … and shouting … from the 1962 film classic as follows:

Hike up to above the Treasury (aka the Indiana Jones building) for some stunning Alpha-Male poses. Pictures to be sent very soon, Inshallah! Then drive “TO AQABA!” (If you haven’t seen Lawrance of Arabia, you might not understand the hilarity of screaming that quote every 15 minutes so or in the little POS Hyundai Alden rented…)

And probably shouting something a little bit different after a tussle with an ATV he describes:

Then- To Wadi Rum! This was Lawrence of Arabia’s hide-out during the Arab Revolt. Stunning place. Alden and Mother found housing at “Beit Ali” and promtly rented ATVs to go dune bashing for a couple of hours.

Lesson learned: If you are going too fast on an ATV (Alden discovered they top out at nearly 60 mph) and you find yourself nearing a dune’s drop-off of unknown height, don’t go down it. But should you fly off a dune at a very fast speed, make sure you are able to roll faster than the ATV.

I’ll take the advice, if I can ever get back there … though I hadn’t thought of an ATV … but I digress

JJ from NJ offers a slightly different account entitled “Wadi Rum and Petra!” that yet again the famous Jordanian hospitality; yet again via a taxi driver:

Patrick and I hired a taxi driver named Moosa to take us from Aqaba to Wadi Rum. He was a really nice guy, but a bit too talkative at times. He took us to his brother’s restaurant for breakfast and we ate virtually for free.

The drive to Wadi Rum was great. It was through the desert and very scenic. Once we arrived in Wadi Rum, we went into town and Moosa dropped us off at our guide’s house. We then met a Swiss brother/sister duo and they joined us for our night into the desert.

Then after describing a somewhat terrifying evening abseiling adventure, JJ describes something I experienced my first trip to Jordan – an amazing view of our solar system from the lightless desert floor.

We decided not to sleep in the tent and so we dragged our mattresses outside and slept under the stars. Apparently there are rather large spiders and snakes that wander around but we didn’t see any. Sleeping out there was beyond awesome, but there was no chance of sleeping through the sunrise and the swarms of flies that accompanied it.

Funny, on the plane over to Jordan this last time, I encountered two young Jordanian men living in the U.S., heading back for a wedding. I asked them if they’d ever been to Wadi Rum. They hadn’t. My response was simply:

Why wait?

AMMAN, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) — Jordan’s government seeks to add four more natural sites to the UN’s World Heritage List, local daily The Jordan Times reported on Thursday.

The four sites are the Dana, Al Azraq, Al Mujib and Wadi Rum nature reserves, said Fares Juneidi, Secretary General with Jordan’s Environment Ministry.

Let’s see what this does for ecotourism in Jordan.

Crump on his trusty steed

A two-wheeled epic adventure from Amman to Aqaba through the Great Rift Valley that included:

• dealing with 95 degree desert heat;
• army checkpoints manned by “pimply teenagers” with big guns;
• stunning sandless desert landscapes with shining pebbles and sunset silhouettes;
• peddling through the lowest place on earth;
• friendly farmers waving from their tidy tomato fields and olive groves;
• camping out with the Bediouns in a tent; and
• peddling to points like Petra and the Dead Sea.

There’s much more to read about in the original article, including links to the tour company and six other similar cycling adventures.

We’ll start off with some musings from someone six months in the Middle East, where Alysha offers this Arabian ecotourism adventure after a visit to Karak castle:

Rihla ala Jenub (Trip to the South) … we ventured to Wadi Dana, one of several nature reserves in Jordan that have been groomed for eco-tourism. Resplendent with majestic mountain ranges covered in greenery and humongous scarab beetles the size of bottle camps, our group spent the night in pristine white tepees, which were quite comfortable, albeit a bit cold. I relished in the quiet of Dana–although Amman may not be a very large city, there is never a morning when the adhan, or call to prayer, does not blare out from the mosque down the street around 5 am.

Contrary to Alysha’s excellent description of ecotouring the Dana Natural Reserve, we have this gratuitous little post entitled ‘Indie Travelers’ Top 10 for 2008‘ from the Don’t Burn the Day blog where they suggest Petra as a place to experience ecotourism.

Good luck with that as the commercialization of this wondrous ancient site doesn’t really lend itself to the type of ecological tourism that focuses on volunteering, personal growth, and learning new ways to live on the planet. This isn’t to say Petra isn’t worth the hike, it’s just also crowded with tourists of all kinds there, candy wrappers, discarded water bottles, donkey ska and all.

So if not Petra, then where? Glad you asked … as this short and simple post from the JordanGuide blog entitled “where to go” offers these locations:

Note also that most of the excellent ecotourism projects operated in Jordan’s Dana, Wadi Mujib and Ajlun nature reserves only operate between April and October.

Meanwhile, that busy Jordan Soils Gang gets earns the hat-trick, getting mention for a third time for this mention of the RSCN:

Afterwards we headed to the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature’s “Wild Jordan” nature center. We heard a talk by one of the employees about some of the environmental problems in Jordan and what the RSCN is doing to help, mostly they are working in the ecotourism sector. We had lunch in their cafe, of course tons of food again, and the view was spectacular.

And while on the topic of the RSCN, ‘Where in the World is Spud?‘ offers this excellent economic insight into eco-tourism:

Day 2 in Amman and things are going very well. Today we went and visited RSCN, the Royal Society for Conservation of Nature. They were a really neat NGO who realized that nature can not be saved solely for the sake of nature, that in order to bring about real change you have to stimulate economic development as well. The man we met with, Chris Johnson, was from Britain and worked with the World Bank. He had been sent here to Jordan to help start up ecotourism sites throughout the country.

And while on the topic of economics and ecotourism, Peace Corps worker Mindy in Jordan informs us that:

I live in a region of Jordan called the Eastern Badia, in a small village that is home to I-have-no-idea how many people, even more sheep and goats, and a cluster of Bedouins who have a coffee addiction unlike any Starbuck’s devotee in the States. The Eastern Badia region is the entire area east of Amman (the “panhandle” of Jordan) and extends south to an area adjacent to Petra. Its name derives from the root word Bedouin …

… However, notions of the Badia and Bedouin life plug directly into the Jordanian psyche. In 1992…Jordan’s Higher Council for Science and Technology…established the Badia Research and Development Programme (www.badia.gov.jo). The BRDP has identified vast potential in the Badia, ranging from mineral resources to ecotourism, traditional crafts and renewable energy. Badia bees, for example, can produce twice as much honey as those in Ajloun, Jordan’s traditional beekeeping centre; in 2001, the BRDP launched a scheme to kick-start production by private-sector Badia apiaries.

[The BRDP] is now attempting to limit the number of sheep per household to just twenty, instead of thousands, and to turn around the priorities of farmers, who devote land and precious water to crops such as tomatoes and watermelon while simultaneously importing vast quantities of animal feed…

I’m not sure what to think about all that.

And as if we haven’t talked enough about the World Economic Forum, they did at least honors some social entrepreneurs residing in Egypt and Jordan where ‘ecopreneurist‘ MC Milker writes:

Some of those facilitating change in the region were the winners of Social Entrepreneur of the Year for Jordan and Egypt announced at the forum. In Jordan, the winner uses a for-profit model familiar to many female entrepreneurs – take care of business while taking care of the family.

“Zeinab Al Momani’s Sakrah Women’s Cooperative promotes the economic, social and cultural rights of women in the remote and rural areas of Jordan while operating as a successful for-profit cooperative.Its women members cultivate, manufacture, package and market the cooperative’s products and share in the profits, while their children are enrolled in the child care programme or benefit from school and university grants given by the group.”

There are actually a number of programs such as the Sakrah Women’s Cooperative we were made aware of our first full day in Jordan back at a November 4th press panel. Good and interesting to see how ecotourism is providing opportunities for women in the Middle East to overcome poverty.

More next week – from a place you wouldn’t expect me to be – or maybe you would.

The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) defined ecotourism as:

Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.

While places like Petra and Madaba amaze and awe, they’re also a bit overrun tourists and tourist-related industries that can detract and distract one from drinking in the natural diversity offered from a country geographically divided by desert, the Jordan valley and the East Bank plateaus.

In fact I recall on my 2004 journey through Jordan, a running joke on the tour bus was spotting the numerous black plastic shopping bags floating by the roadside that our guide had sarcastically referred to as “the national flag” of the Jordanian highways.

So it was with refreshing contrast that I noted on my newly minted blogJordan-Google calendar an event offered today entitled Canyoning about Wadi Al Karak – an eco-tour package offered by Terhaal, whom describes themselves on their webpage as:

… an ecoadventure travel company that operates quality adventures that are enjoyable and environmentally friendly in a responsible manner. Terhaal runs a variety of adventures including canyoning, hiking, trekking, camping, cycling, camel riding and scuba diving.

And even though this writer is yet another year older today … ahem … I’m thinking that in a couple years, when I fulfill my promise to take my daughter to see Jordan, this might be the way to go so that along with Biblical and historic wonders we’d take in – we could and would also clip in our carabeiners and check out the country’s compelling vistas and lush landscapes.

I think the above experiences, combined with perhaps a stop at Habitat for Humanity in Jordan and we might have a trifecta there that both she and I would remember for a lifetime.

I’m also thinking this is something I’d want do to with good friend, former Army Ranger, and sometimes ‘extreme tour guide‘ Chuck Holton.