An improbable day: camels, sand storm and snow !

We all wake up naturally around 8am, it’s funny, because the tents are so thick that you can’t see the light of the day at all ! 

Breakfast is a simple and delicious Arabic mix of labneh, hummus and few other delicacies. We bid goodbye to everyone, as each goes on their day’s excursion.

We have booked a camel ride back to the village. I have never been on a camel, and I am quite excited about this ! Plus the village is not really near, so it’s going to be a real long camel ride in the desert and not some touristy 20min stunt.

It’s fairly funny the gait of the camel and the way it moves under you. I find it more smooth than a horse. However it’s slow, like super slow. The excitement is gone after a good hour. Then I sort of enjoyed the view in between period of daydreaming. The ride was supposed to last between 1h30 and 2h, but I think our camels were not super awake, because I took 2h30min instead. My butt needed a break by the end of it. 

I have a renewed respect for the Bedouins who spend an entire day riding them.

We arrive at our car and discuss with Mohammed, he says to be careful on the road, it snowed in the mountains on the way to Wadi Mujib.

We start the drive and the weather is turning sour. The sky is really grey and the wind is picking up. As we get to the highway towards Amman, it gets increasingly worst until we hit a traffic jam.

At first, we thought that a truck must have overturned, the wind was that strong. So we patiently waited but after 1h, we started to get frustrated. Everyone had turned their engine off. I needed to pee badly and we were stopped on the opposite side of a petrol station. The other highway lane had been empty for a while now.

I cross, and the wind is so strong I can barely stand upright ! I make my way to the toilets and that where I see, that barely 5 cars/trucks before us the police has blocked all lane. No traces of accident. The way back to the car against the wind is a struggle on its own. I do not recall the last time I face something like this. You add to this the sand, we are in a proper sandstorm. Half of all the cars are covered in a layer of red sand now.

As I get back into the car, Alexis had checked. The highway is closed on both side because of the strong wind which is about 60km/h. 

We wait… We got stuck from 1pm until 4pm. It’s when the forecast said the wind should start to die down. 

We continue at a slow speed and the landscape is pretty unique. We have a wall of dark clouds and a fog made by sand clouds on the right of us, all pushed away by the strong wind coming from our left. Then a rainbow appears on top of these apocalyptic clouds.

Finally we reach our turn, and start our way to the mountain.

And the most improbably thing happens: it snowed. Like strong heavy snow. 

With this exceptional phenomenon comes the crowd. Everyone is double parked, going super slow and playing with the snow, taking videos and pictures. The visibility is very low, people everywhere, cars badly parked and a couple of accidents for good measures pave the way. It’s a nightmare to get through this section.

And… suddenly our gas gauge goes from reserve to almost nothing in a second. It must be broken ! Shit… stress levels are high. With this jam, we don’t know if we can make it to a station before it’s too late. Google maps indicates one less than 2km away… and it’s a fake one. There is none. Next one another 5km…

I swear we arrived at that gas station on the last fumes of our reservoir.

This also marked the moment where snow became rain. And while we made our way slower because it was slippery, at least there were no more traffic jam.

The road down the plateau to the Jordan Highway is beautiful, and as we see the dead sea, the sky is clearing a little and we get a nice view.

A travel that should have taken 4h, took us 8h today. Needless to say, we are dead when we reach Wadi Mujib chalets. Luckily, I had pre-booked diner ( which was delicious ), so we didn’t have to think about anything when we arrived.

The chalets are right by the Dead sea, perfect sea view. We will have a better look tomorrow.