2006.05.23_Wadi Rum 7

After the Khazali Canyon, our Wadi Rum experience was almost over. We did more camel riding, had a brief lunch, a short nap, and at least we rode back to Rum Village. While we waited for our hired taxi at the Visitor Centre, we went into the official Wadi Rum shop. I bought a black T-shirt with the Rum-art (ancient rock carving of animals) printed on it. We reached Aqaba in late afternoon. For some reason, we ended up having Chinese food for dinner. It was a decent size restaurant on the second floor of a commercial building. We weren't the only table there but of course it was not full. I wondered if it would ever get full. The food was fine. We were all tired and hungry. After the meal, we were quite satisfied.

2006.05.23_Wadi Rum 6

From time to time, we got off our camels to walk on the sand, or climb another rock mount, and so on. Two to three hours on the camel back was really not the most pleasant experience. Perhaps because of the heat or lack of good vegetation around, HC's camel was a little grumpy at a point that it refused to walk and kneed down all of a sudden, almost throwing HC down onto the sand. I was glad that at least my camel seemed content about what it was doing. Every time we got off the camel after about riding for an hour, we could hardly walk.

The "desert mountains" near and far dominated the landscape everywhere we went. At last we were led to the Khazali Canyon. We didn't have time to go in too deep, but deep enough to see the dramatic sunlight shone through the narrow gap high up and reached the gorge floor in a dramatic fashion. A perfect spot for some nice photos.

2006.05.23_Wadi Rum 5

We had a small breakfast when we get up. Soon after, our guide of the second day came, along with three camels. The camels were quite skinny, but tall. It was our first time to ride a camel in the desert. We were kind of excited but also worried since we had heard many painful stories about camel riding in the past. We walked to the camels. The guide made a "shuzzz" noise and successfully made the camels to knee down. One by one each of us climb onto a camel. It turned out that my camel was actually the "nicest" one, well trained and relatively well disciplined.

Forgot how long the ride really was, maybe an hour, or an hour and a half, in open desert, over rolling sand dunes. As the morning went by the desert was warming up quickly. I was always trying to find the "best" position on the camel, so that I could balance myself without killing my thighs and comfortably take pictures with my FM2. Every time we passed by scattered plants our camels would venture off a little, lower their heads to chew on the leaves, and always cause a chaotic moments by pulling all camels onto one side, since all of our camels, including the one rode by the guide, were tied together with ropes.