Wadi Rum 1

Never have I been in a car that hit a speed bump so fast that my seat belt has taken over gravity to keep me in my place.  But on the drive from Amman to Wadi Rum it's inevitable.  The highway there has speed bumps every dozen kilometers or so.  Yes, speed bumps on the highway.  There are either road turtles, or little holes where the road turtles used to be, about 30 meters before the bump to warn you.  Sometimes there were signs right at the bumps.  Sometimes we had to honk at stray goats or dogs, let's just say it's not a drive for zoning out and taking in the scenery...which is breathtaking.  About an hour out of Amman we started the leg of our drive along Dead Sea, and just as we reached the southern tip of the lowest point on earth, the sun rose.  And good thing it did, about an hour later the landscape out to our right dropped away and the sandstone mountains of southern Jordan grew out of the desert.

Aboud, Hakim, Nick and I rolled into the village of Rum around 10 and immediately reminded by the "Lawrence of Arabia Supermarket" how deeply rooted this place is in history. I bet Lawrence and Indiana Jones are the two men who've done the most for Jordanian Tourism.  Would half the people know about Wadi Rum and Petra if it weren't for them haha. Even deeper rooted in history were the Nabatean ruins that we walked past on the approach:

The East Face of Jabal Rum:

Nick passing the Nabatean ruins on the approach.  The edge of Rum is in the background:

We climbed the first 4 pitches of The Inshallah Factor without a hitch. Great day out climbing desert sandstone with friends and in a spectacular setting.  The belays were on ledges in between some detached pillars and the proper wall.  Great video coming up stay tuned!

Rappelling back down the route was pretty straightforward until we retrieved the ropes from the last pitch where they got stuck. Twice.  The sun was setting so we decided to leave the rope and come back for the rope in the morning.  Good thing we were already on the ground, it would have been quite the epic!

View from the top of the 4th pitch:

Good shot of the village of Rum and Jabal Um Ishrin.

Once we got back to the ground Hakim and Nick drove to drop Nick off with the CIEE group that was going to Petra the next day and Aboud and I met up with the rest of the group we were camping with that night.  While waiting for Hakim to come back we visited our friend Suleman--a local bedouin guide who insisted we all come in for some sugar with water and tea.

Once Hakim came back we all drove out to the desert where Hakim and Aboud spotted a couple of their friends who were camping in a cave nearby one of the sport crags in Wadi Rum.  We had just found our camping spot for the night! We scrambled up a shallow slope to the cave where our friends were camping, and within a half an hour the group of 6 or so of us had our tents pitched, and pasta boiling on the fire.  Of course we didn't have to wait for the pasta to finish though! Anis and Vanessa offered us some pita bread, cheese, and whiskey as soon as we arrived, and it wasn't too long before some hummus came out, which I was more than happy filling up on =)

Picture of our campsite, and the view from our campsite: