The Writer is Out There.

On the final morning, Aodeh drops me in Rum, and I hitch to the main junction to Aqaba (2 rides, ½ hr. Not bad). Then I have to wait almost 3 hours for a bus, in the steadily rising heat.

I’m surprised anyone can bear to sit by me, or even get on the same bus, having been in the desert in the same clothes for almost a week. I stink, far beyond anything you can imagine.

I find a bed in Aqaba, with little effort, at the ‘Petra hotel’. A much, much better deal than ‘International’, although I don’t get a window ( I get curtains though. Weird) and the hot water doesn’t work. As soon as I kick off my boots, I itch to feel more than ‘floor’ beneath my feet, to see the sky, and not to have walls on every side of me.

All thoughts of spa-luxury gone as I’m pre-warned about the hot water situation, I no longer care. It’s so sticky here I’ll be glad of the cool, anyway. When I get to the shower, I discover that here, as in Rum, ‘cold’ merely means ‘not deliberately heated’. I’m not sure whether I’m glad of it or not.

It takes 3 showers before I feel even close to clean, and my first mission is to find somewhere to do laundry (6 days and nights in coloured sand, with messy food, stinky transport and few facilities have left my stuff almost irreparable), closely followed by a quick swim, e-mail check, and organising tomorrow’s expedition, all completed just in time to catch the sunset again.

—

I missed my afternoon siesta today, REALLY missed it, almost dozing on the public beach as I sat behind my book.

—

I treated myself to a Chinese – it may not have been the Movenpick, but it was still a treat, more to combat to lost feeling outside of the desert than to make up for things denied whilst I was there.

It was really strange being the only punter in the restaurant – a deep red box with a gentle, cheesy Chinese voice singing on a 4-track loop, watched and waited on by 2 eager, nervous staff.

The sweet and sour dish was made with fresh-caught white fish. Beautiful.

—

30^th April.

With some trepidation, I walk through the door of the diving centre, and get kitted out for a trial dive.

We drive to a private beach 15 minutes away. It’s a hundred times quieter than the public beach, and it’s acceptable to don western beach-wear – expected, in fact. There’s a group of experienced divers going down before me, so I sit and read my book until my instructor, Rami, is free. He’s a young, confident, attentive fellow, and I’d never have had the balls to go down without his encouragement.

Walking across the beach with a tank on your back and weights at your waist is a lot harder than the other divers made it look, and it’s even worse as you start to wade into the sea, and try to get your damned flippers to stay on your feet. I almost slip over countless times.

It’s alien trying to breathe only through your mouth, and it takes a couple of attempts for me to quell the strange instinctual knowledge that I have to rise out of the water so that I can breathe comfortably.

And it’s really difficult to steer yourself in the water, with the current and weights pulling you in different directions. I end up needing Rami’s help to get where we need to go. It’s exhausting.

But it’s definitely , DEFINITELY worth it.

The colours of the reef, and schools of fish gushing right in front of you are unforgettable. Watching a sea anemone’s spiky form waft gently as it sits on the rock, rather than appearing limp and dull as it does when the tide flows out and you go rock-pooling. It’s awesome. It’s a little disconcerting looking up through the clear waters and seeing legs thrash above you, but you get over it. And, highlight of the day (aparth from the fact that I actually did it!) I touched a turtle. Literally. It swam right up to us J

It strange, but slightly reassuring, to find a member of the Tourist Police – Zack – appear beside me as the doctor proclaimed that, contrary to the Wadi Rum Medical Centre’s charming doctor’s diagnosis (gastro enteritis) I had been affected by the sun. He sat and talked whilst I waited for the IV fluids bag to empty, and then took painstaking care to transcribe my ‘statement of events’ for the hospital records.

The ambulance driver, Mahmoud, who brought me to the hospital, waited for me in the lobby, and as we leave the carpark, asks ‘you want go to meet my family – my wife and child-er-en – in my home for a cup of tea?’

Desperately hungry but still weak and queasy, sugary tea seems like a great idea and I readily accept.

At Mahmoud’s his children rule the roost. It’s 9pm and most of the little people are still very much awake. There’s a 4 year old boy curled up on the couch, a toddler pulling at his father’s shirt, and a brother (6) and sister (5) chasing each other around the apartment. With a little encouragement from their father, the eldest two practise their English, naming objects laying around the room, and then the lad takes great pleasure in showing me his school books, with neatly scripted English letters filling page after page.

We’re back at the Medical Centre in Rum by 10.20. The charming doctor and a local restaurant owner are playing cards in a back room and we join them. Aodeh does not answer his phone, so we sit and chat over sweet mint tea. Eventually, the restaurant owner offers me a bed at his place – one of the two sofas in a back room in the restaurant. I have no choice, so I accept. The bathroom is outside, with no light. It’s half-demolished, the water doesn’t work properly and it’s a filthy haven for bugs. I decide it’s safer not to brush my teeth, and fall into the couch, with it’s squidgy foam offering no protection against the sharp springs, feeling dizzy and sick and hot in the 32* heat.

At 6am I’m awoken from almost-sleep by a hammering on the door, as Aodeh appears in a halo of daylight.

Heading back into the desert to meet up with the others in time for breakfast, it feels like I’m going home.

Picture this: Things I’ll never forget about the desert.

The Camel’s feet are an, awesome thing; compact, furry shock absorbers, the 3-part movement of every step, engrossing. The gentle padding noise as they work their way across the sand, sending mini dust storms cascading over their hooves and beyond. It’s the only sound for miles.

Their hind legs are impressively designed too, with their 3-way fold, which makes the process of sitting a forward-back-forward jolt.

Eyelashes to die for, tufty ears and a quivering snout/ bottom lip endear the camel to its riders. They’re not nearly as horrid as people make out!

The gentle churning noises they make, deep within their necks and the pits of their stomachs. The constant sound of chewing – louder than any American businessman – and the ripping up of foliage with every step.

The indignant noises they make when asked to do something, ranging from faint grumbling to pained whining, all the way up to outraged bellows which echo against the rocks and grow until you could believe there was a 20 foot camel being beaten with an iron rod behind the hills. On wide, flat spaces, it dissipates across the sand faster than a startled snake, so the sound is cut unnaturally short.

The sound of the wind, which blanches all others as it echoes through your ears, enclosing you in a bubble which makes daydreams too easy

The strange mingled smell of sun-cream, sweat, wood-smoked flower-chai and camel fur, which clings like a limpet to your skin.

The ever changing streaks of rock and sand – sandstone, limestone and basalt all forced together – each colour, each pattern, each weird twisted eruption of rock, each soft band of sand or patch of shingle more beautiful than the last.

The carpet of delicate white/blue/purple/pink flowers which spread before you, and the powerful smell of bluebells which rises from the ground wherever they sit.

The strange realisation that everything is simultaneously exactly the same and utterly different.

The sense, the knowledge, of vast space, yet the safe hugging of rocks. The idea that it goes on forever, it’s so big. The diminished sense of scale – a destination which seems within 5 minutes can easily take half a day to reach.

There’s barely an inch of ground without some life – a flower, bush, a leafy plant, a beetle or a bright orange wood-louse. The desolate reputation of the desert is unjust.

The sky – the world’s most comforting ceiling, producing hours of entertainment as we rest aching muscles and watch the dance of the sun/ are enveloped by the thick-pile cloak of stars. Anneke tried to teach me the constellations. I think I can recognise the square of pegasus; I mean, if someone points in the right direction – I can’t necessarily find the thing. For ages every evening, my eyes flitted between sky and fire, unsure which to settle on. I never saw a moon.

The beautiful taste of wood-smoke infused tea, boiled with at least a beaker full of sugar for a tiny kettle of water, and added desert flowers thrown in every now and then. I may have to build a mini-fire wherever I settle, to replicate our frequent, wondergul stops for tea. Perhaps I’ll build a custom sandpit for the job. Equally beautiful, is fire-smoked bread, buried in ash and sand.

—

The first night, Aodeh dares Anneke and I to walk from the camp, and the glare of the flame, to view the sky at its best; try to catch a shooting star or two. Anneke declined in favour of bed; I however, jumped at the chance. Aodeh picked up a thick furry blanket – soft as real fur – and we waded up the sand slope. He managed it easily, while I was concerned with rocks and shrubs at my feet, which slip through unfamiliar sand at awkward moments, catching me off balance in the darkest of darkness. I lumber behind him and try to hide my breathlessness when we draw to a halt.

He hands me an end of the rug. It’s heavy and warm – baked by sun and car engine. Each of us wrapping a corner about our shoulders, we successfully sit, folded in warmth, on the rug rather than the sand.

“Wow!” I breathe. It’s almost as clear and deep as that night in the jungle. Only now, unframed by riverside trees, it’s everywhere.

Aodeh smiles. “It’s good here.”

“Yeah – I hardly see the stars at home through all the pollution.”

“No pollution here. In the village, yes, but here no. No planes either.”

“None? Not even the occassional military thing?”

“No way.” He shakes his head as we watch, wrapped in silence.

“Want to lay down? You can see more sky.”

“Sure.”

We shuffle back and down. Aodeh wraps his end of the rug around him. I don’t – it’s still plenty warm enough. I pull my arms under my head and shift my gaze backwards at the sky.

The wind, chilled by absence of sun, picks up, bringing with it a spray of sharp sand. I squeeze my eyes and mouth shut against it. Aodeh pulls the rug over his head. I follow suit at the second gust, but somehow the cold and sand still get in to both of us, so we rearrange ourselves – shuffling across and pulling the rug over both of us at once and instantly we’re encased in velvet warmth.

I point out the 1^st shooting star.

“It’s only little thought – I need a big one. You… you know about wishing on shooting stars, right?”

“Yeah.” I can’t help grinning.

“I have a big wish. I need a big star.”

“You think making the same wish on tonnes of little stars is the same as once on a big one?” I muse, quietly.

“Don’t think so.” Aodeh sounds puzzled.

We must have been there for 45 minutes, and I stopped counting shooting stars as it quickly topped two dozen – there were hundreds. It was more magical than a Disney moment, by a thousand fold.

—

It’s strange – on the beach, in Aqaba and Tel Aviv as easily as Scarborough, even the best-baked sand is cooled beneath the surface – you can feel the temperature change when you worm your feet into it. In the desert, though, you can dig a long way down – further than your heels can reach, further than the bathroom trench you build, and it’s still warm. Even in the dead of night or pre-dawn still, when the surface has cooled, you scratch off an inch and you’re toasty warm.

—

Of all the places to find someone to book trade, I find someone in Wadi Rum!

—

The camels were fantastic; each with their individual personalities.

Nassa’s (Si’nan) was a bad tempered git, always trying to reach back and bite as Nassa mounted, wandering off when unridden, and making his opinion known. Anneke’s (Dan’an) was a little more placid, more polite and relenting. Mine (Gu’nan), though, a 3-year old infant, behaved exactly like a human child -–hurling tantrums when he didn’t get his way, nudging the others to play when they clearly didn’t want to, and nosing through the camp with all the curiosity of a toddler. He frequently seemed to grow confused of he was not sandwiched between the others on the trek, and he had not yet learned the noises of command. From the 4^th day, tired and miserable, he kept trying to turn for home. The only time his kid-personality did not show was when we steered through a herd of breeding females, when his adolescent lust peeked through.

On day 4, I had a stick, and though I found it hard to use, it worked – particularly useful since my reigns, a frayed section of climbers’ rope, were too short to be of any use – and he fast became more helpful.

Nassa’s constant “Camel eat, nice good, huh?” allowing the camels to eat didn’t help – bad habits die hard.

Finally, I could ride at ease. He still complained bitterly at the command to ‘go down’ (signalled by a strange hissing noise made at the back of the throat), but riding in the right direction/ speed at the right time, we got it down, man!

I’ll never forget the way, on the 4^th night, he rifled through the camp for food – I was woken by him nibbling at my feet; he slurped up the dishwater in one go and opened the bread package before I was up and leading him away, Anneke, a head poking from a blanket pile which shook with laughter.

—

In the middle of nowhere, I had some of the best food in Jordan. If I thought he’d come, I’d ask Aodeh to travel with me in exchange for his culinary masterpieces.

The best meal surprised me – buttery rice, which went beautifully with the creamy tomato-goat stew. And one night, he produced a strange cement dish of bread and labneh pudding stuff, which reminded me of a bland version of my dad’s Eggy Bread, except with tougher chunks of bread, and added grit and sand.

Then there were the strange sesame biscuit sticks, like thick ‘rich tea’, or rusks, which you had to dunk in tea if you wanted to keep your teeth whole or cause a rock slide from tumultuous munching.

Our 1^st picnic lunch, with more food than the biggest, hungriest of people could eat, included cheese triangles (a staple of diet in the desert, it seems), a tin of tuna apiece (good job WE had tin openers), date-filled rolls, and a chocolate-free jaffa cake.

And on our final night, we had barbecued chicken, fire-roasted onions and potato wedges, in his palatial permanent camp

—

Aodeh was the perfect host, with his elegant manners, easy going subservience and artful humour, and Robbie-Williams looks. He even brought us chocolate for the last evening, when Anneke’s hormones nagged for it.

Anneke perpetually teased Aodeh, his serious expression and brief outbursts of the most infectious, beautiful smile, showing he didn’t quite know how to take her comments. By the end of the trip, though, he was becoming accustomed to it; you could see the flash behind his eyes, sharp, and filled with scathing wit, but he always squashed it down and stayed silent.

Nassa was a different kettle of fish – a middle aged man in search of his second wife. He repeatedly propositioned Anneke, or questioned Aodeh about her. And he tried to take it easy when it came to cooking, gathering wood and starting a fire to make a fresh round of shai, or catching the camels.

We spent quite some time trying to teach him English. One thing we failed at was establishing the difference between ‘wind’ and ‘window’. Neither could we drill the terms ‘Left’, ‘Right’ and ‘Straight’, which made his directions rather interesting. Left and right were both ‘left’ with differing gestures, and his favourite command was ‘street’ which caused enormous confusion on several occasions. Often there were several ‘‘streets’’- tyre tracks -–within equal distance. And if he meant ‘straight’, it wasn’t helpful that we were all pointing in slightly different directions so that after a while we would all be split up.

Later that evening, he sidles up to me and hands me a folded piece of paper. On it, is a drawing of his, and his address.

—

At lunch, as we all recline on the sofas, with the biggest buffets of delicious food spread out in front of us, a stranger in a police uniform sidles up to us, and squeezes between Ahmed and I.

‘You want be my girlfriend?’

‘No, thanks.’ I reply, bluntly.

‘You are beautiful. To be alone, it is not good for you… Once you taste an Arab man you will not forget… how he tastes, his strong…’ he can see I’m unimpressed, and changes tact ‘You must try new things when you travel.’

Yuck.

Ahmed puts a hand on his shoulder.

‘No. Leave her alone. She’s a friend.’

I’m touched that this small-ish 14 year old would challenge a figure of authority.

And I suppose I’m lucky – this is the first rellay pushy, grimy guy I’ve crossed paths with in almost 8 weeks.