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We get up at 5:15 o'clock, and wait for the bus to Wadi Rum in the door of the hotel. The reception personnel has phoned the bus driver to pick up us. We must still had to wait for another 45 minutes in the center of Wadi Mousa for some travelers to arrive. A beduin woman that travels in the same bus, gave us her baby while she had breakfast. Before leaving the bus, near Wadi Rum, she invites us to visit the horses of her stable before leaving the village. When we arrived to the lonely bus terminal, our guide, Attayek Ali, with whom we had contacted before through Internet, received us. He drives us to his house, where he invites us to a tea and there we meet two of his friends that cheerly talk in Arabic. After some confusion and without finding out anything, we jump into take in the tumbledown jeep, and after a brief stop in a local store to buy the provisions for the lunch, Attayek says goodbye to us, and tells us that one of the boys will be our guide the rest of the day. The plan is to visit the most interesting places in the desert during the morning, to have lunch in a Bedouin camp, and in the afternoon, explore on foot by our means the Barrah canyon and after that, move to a privileged place to enjoy the sunset. We will have dinner in the same camp and we will spend the night in the desert admiring the stars.
Our guide that he/she says to call himself something similar to Ed, he/she doesn't speak virtually anything of English and the communication decreases to some scarce smiles. We feel something swindled, since Attayek was recommended us as the best guide in Wadi Rum", and having negotiated a quite high price for its services (25 JD for person, about $75 in total) we imagined another class of attention. The trip in the back part of the jeep is quite upset, and in little time we go into in the desert. The first stop consists on a visit to some ruins and a source used by the same one Lawrence from Arabia. The landscape of desert and dunes are really incredible, and with the exception of an a tourist in the distance mounted in a camel, the view doesn't succeed in seeing more anybody in several hours.
We spend the rest of the morning in the back platform of the jeep, with a couple of stops to contemplate some nabatean inscriptions and a natural arch. Little before lunch time, we arrive to the tent of a bedouin couple, where they offer us a tea while their two inhabitants talk happěly with our guide. Their conversation extends for more than one hour. No one speaks english, so little interaction here.
After this stop, we go to visit a great natural arch, and a new stop of almost half an hour to see it, although some few minutes they would have been enough. The views from the high of the natural arch are worthwhile.
The lunch is not anything pleasant because of the heat and the flies that invade the food. After a long rest of almost two hours, accompanied by the insistent flies, Ed leaves us in the entrance of the Barrah canyon and he tells us that he'll wait for us in the other side, an hour and a half later. The experience of walking in absolute solitude between these lonely mountains and the golden dunes is unforgettable. In some areas, the echo that the walls of red stone generate, makes bounce the sound during seconds. After the walk, Ed waits for us with the jeep, and he tries to take us to the sunset place, but it's too late. He tries his best to get to this place through the tracks of the dunes, but we have to ask him to reduce the speed. We prefer not to play with our life just for a sunset, althought it must be beautiful in this place.
At his time of the day, we are already a bit tired of the desert and we don't feel too comfortable with the received treatment, so we decide that we will move to Aqaba after having dinner. We couldn't imagine how would end this night. For the dinner, Attayak joins us with another guide that it accompanies a Japanese girl, called Chieko, that is in the area making an very similar journey to ours. When we prepare to enjoy the dinner cooked by the guides, we hear Chieko complain about a fall. At a first glance, the girl has tripped with one of the strings that tighten the tent. We run to help her to get up, but the pain in her leg is intense and she cannot move. She has the odd idea of eating her dinner right there, in the floor, in the back of the tent, and wait for the leg to recover. But after an hour, the pain increased, and she can't hardly move. We took the decision of evacuating her to the town of Rum, where a small clinic exists. The transfer is tremendously painful for her, that during more than 20 minutes, must suffer the continuous potholes and bumbs of the 4x4 in the dunes. The doctor of the town is not able to diagnose the lesion, although for us, it looks like being some hip problem. After administering her a sedative, he decides to transfer her by ambulance to the hospital of Aqaba, about 60 kilometers far. During the wait for the ambulance, in the door of the small clinic, the guides make jokes about the screams of the girl and how weak she is. After most of positive experiences in this trip, Wadi Rum, an authentic gem of the nature, leaves us a sweet and sour taste for the not so very respectful behavior of these guides.
When the ambulance of the army arrives, the driver inform us that they are transferring her to the Military Hospital Princess Haya in Aqaba. We get a taxi that for 13 JD takes us to the Al-cazar in Aqaba, where after the typical bargaining, we get a room with a sea view, room 301, for 36 JD the night. Once we leave our baggage in the hotel room, we go on foot to the hospital, where we find Chieko, and a bad presage: the feared hip break. The quality of the hospital and the treatment by the personnel are simply unbeatable. Chieko has some problems to communicate in English with her doctor, so we act as translators for her, advising her to contact with the japanese embassy. In a little while a kind policeman appears that takes declaration to the frightened girl, again with our help in the translation and expalining the facts to the police. The doctors decide that she needs surgery in an urgent way in Amman, so in few hours later they will transfer her to the capital. We have to say goodbye to Chieko. This moment is really moving and tears appears in everyone faces. Althought we only know each other for very few hours, being her only friends in this country makes it very difficult and sad leaving her.
It's very late when we return walking to the hotel and we decide to take a coke and some cookies in the street, remembering the ammount of adventures of this single day.
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