Jordanian Desert

Hello Everybody,

I know I have not posted in a long time, but this website has been blocked and we have not had internet. I am just going to start from a few days ago and update you all from there.

We entered Jordan late into the night on a ferry and had to wait for our passports to be redistributed to us from the ferry. Travel days usually involve waiting around for long periods of time. We finally got on our bus and were headed for our next location...we had no idea what we were in for. After driving for an hour we stopped at what we thought was our final destination and unloaded all of our backpacks. "Load 'em up!" was the next thing we heard. There were three vehicles waiting for us to take us to a Bedouin camp. There were about 20 seats for all 30 of us and oh what an interesting ride it was. The five person car that I chose to go in seated seven of us and the back door was being held in place by a paper clip and the side door did not close all the way and the front windshield was so dirty that the driver had to look out his window in order to see where we were going. All of our backpacks were on the roof with no straps holding them down and we were off-roading in the desert in the pitch black with no traces of civilization around. I can't even describe to you our sentiments especially since we were not sure where the men were taking us and if we were safe with them. After 20 mins of driving (this seemed much longer than just 20 mins) we arrived safely to a Bedouin camp. They were all so nice and they fed us and showed us great hospitality. Most of us slept outside since we found a huge spider in the tent and it was so beautiful. Most of us were settled in and we see what looks like a person in the distance coming from the middle of nowhere. Our hearts begin to race as we question the intentions of this figure. As it comes closer, we see that it is a camel hopping on three legs! One of the legs has been tied up to prevent it from running away too quickly. A man begins to chase his pet as we sit there in disbelief. Did we really just see that?

Our Bedouin camp :)

The next morning different Bedouin tribes from all around Jordan helped bring 29 camels for all of us to ride into the desert. It was supposed to be 30, but they forgot one and Brock was left without a camel for the first quarter of the trip. We traveled on the camels for about three hours and most everyone was strapped to someone else’s camel and there was a driver pulling them along, but my driver let me take the reins all by myself and it was extremely fun. We got to our camping spot in the middle of the desert and slept under the stars on a sand dune watching the many shooting stars. It was definitely amazing!



Camping in the desert