06 Apr Wadi Rum: The Red Desert

Fourth week of captivity. Today is a special day. It's time to change the sheets, which were already yellowing and scratching like sandpaper.

I have decided to run away from it all by returning to the realm of legends to remember when I travelled the world in search of mermaids and lands of djinns and dragons, remote oases, lost cities, islands of happiness or any other impossible dream that seemed like a good idea to pursue.

And there, in the past, I have come across memories of a trip I secretly made to Jordan, which I am now preparing to declassify (in part) and bring to light.

Ever since my time in Baghdad, Jordan, and Amman in particular, had become one of my favourite places in the world in its own right. I remember there was one place in Amman I liked to go to, the Bhuda Bar, a watering hole where diplomats, spies, military men, adventurers, pirates, hustlers and the best of every house dropped in every evening. All you had to do was go in and order a gin and tonic to forget the hardships of the heat, chaos and gunfire of Baghdad.

And it was there, one night at the Bhuda, petroling in camaraderie with friends from the embassy, that I first heard about Wadi Rum. The red desert or the Valley of the Moon, I remember they called it.

They spoke of reddish sands, starry nights like no other and special sunrises, narrow canyons and wide valleys with ghostly rocks as if from other worlds, giving rise to lunar landscapes, solitude and silence...

A place, in the words of Lawrence of Arabia, huge, resounding, divine...

And since then I've been on the run

I had to go and see the place from where Prince Faysal and Lawrence of Arabia started the Arab Revolt of 1916. It is said that by the narrow canyon of the Khazali they started their march into Aqaba and into legend. I read it in T.E. Lawrence's The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (a must-read, although I read it in English for my own pain).

And these days that run has returned,

And I thought, (danger...,): why not return to Jordan and continue eastwards from Wadi Rum, following part of the Hajj pilgrims' route? Other deserts await us, red like that of Nafud, endless like that of Ain Daha, and we will reach the confines of Rub al Khali, the most feared desert. A great plan!

I know it's just a dream now, but tonight, with my new sheets, dreams cross a sea of red dunes in a caravan of camels. But we will, and soon, inshaallah.

In the meantime, I leave you with Wadi Rum, a Martian landscape with its strange rock formations, the red of its sands and the nights a la belle etoile in a Bedouin camp.