Africa Overland 08

20th April, Aqaba Jordan

It wasn’t a 1:1 gradient down Wadi Dana, but the last couple of kilometres would have been a 1:2 gradient at least. The good thing was we started early and had a cool breeze blowing. The wadi was shrouded in mist at the beginning which quickly dissipated as the sun rose. The path was good and once we reached the bottom of the wadi, quite undulating. We walked about 5kms, had a rest then headed back. That last 2 kilometres were a killer; I am still suffering two days later.
One of the pleasures of independent travel is the other people you meet in these out of the way places: we once more met up with Janine from Brisbane who was staying at the Dana Hotel, Peter & Jenni a couple from Manchester and Connie and her mother from Holland. The latter two were on a bicycle tour of Jordan but were finding the going tough. Nice to hear stories of other people’s travels.
We travelled to Aqaba that afternoon, we had heard the boat to Nuweiba in Sinai was being repaired and might not be sailing which would have disrupted our plans. Luckily that wasn’t the case. We also needed to try and contact the shipping agent in Aswan for the Lake Nasser ferry between Egypt and Sinai as we were coming to the conclusion our time would be too short to get down to Sinai by the 28th April and would prefer the following sailing. As the barge only takes 3 vehicles we didn’t want to miss out. When ringing him I kept getting a bloke who spoke only Arabic.
Email sent we headed back to Wadi Rum about 60kms out of Aqaba. Many would have heard of the wadi from the ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ movie and remember the spectacular scenery. The real thing is even better. A large area, with sandstone mountains appearing out of a sea of sand like islands in the ocean. Each corner you turn there is another amazing panorama. Most mountains are reddish in colour, vertical and rise hundreds of feet. Guided tours are the only way the public can get around the park either by 4x4, camel or horse. We took the 8 hour 4x4 one that included most of the highlights. These include Lawrence’s Spring, rock carvings, narrow siqs, Lawrence’s house and many other places but it’s that panorama that is the highlight. Quite amazing. Our day was enhanced by being accompanied by Mafuleh, the 8 r old brother of our driver. Small for his age he was full of energy: guiding us to where the best inscriptions were, urging Emma on up this 100 metre sand hill and leading the way up the climbs to the natural bridges. He will be the No 1 guide in a few years time.
While there I managed to get hold of Mr Salah in Aswan, ok for the later date which means we could spend another day with Emma. I needed it to recuperate from that Dana climb.