Dogs in the Desert

Like all the other days of our trip, we woke up to the sun rising over the rocks in a beautiful, yet bright, fashion. Luckily we were dry, as were all of our things, so once we had some breakfast we were ready to go! Because we didn't get to hike through the canyon the day before like we planned, we had to revise our plans a little bit and cut out a dog leg we planned to take around another canyon. Our first stop was another set of inscriptions, supposedly... Just like Lawrence's House, the inscriptions were not so easy to find, and certainly not where the little #7 was on our vague map. But we got to find a little spot of shade to sit before proceeding to Lawrence's Head.

The first time I heard that we were going to a place called Lawrence's Head, I was confused, what was that supposed to mean? But when we got there, it all made sense. Carved into the rock was a drawing of T.E. Lawrence's head labeled with "Lawrence of Arabia" (in Arabic of course) as well as a carving of another dude that I had never heard of, I don't even remember his name. On another rock a little ways away, there was another, much larger carving of Lawrence's face that just seemed awkward to me. We hung out at Lawrence's Head and met an adorable, but clearly stray and probably sick dog. She was covered in flies and other bugs and was definitely hungry. Adam took pity on her and gave her some sausages but that also meant that she followed us. And not just around Lawrence's Head or around to the next canyon, she followed us the entire rest of the day and even stayed and slept near us that night.

After Lawrence's Head we started to hike back to the Seven Pillars of Wisdom (named after a book title by, can you guess who? yep T.E. Lawrence) taking several breaks for tea from some random Bedouins that we met as well as taking a little nap in a shady cave-like section of rock. While our little detour and nap time was great, it ended up causing some little problems later but I'll get to that, no need to skip ahead. We continued hiking towards the Seven Pillars and found this massive rock that just looked too fun not to climb, especially guessing what amazing views we'd have from the top.

As we sat on top of the rock what should we see but more storm clouds. Seriously desert? Two rainstorms in one trip? We scrambled to find some shelter and ended up not really finding a place that would protect both us and our packs. Luckily it was only a sandstorm and by covering our faces we survived and proceeded to hike out to the camping spot to find a place for the night while Adam ran back to the Visitor's Center to refill our empty waters. Because of that nap time I mentioned earlier, as well as the threat of storm, we got to the campsite and it was getting dark quick. Too dark to find a spot up in the rocks that we could get to safely in order to be protected for the night. Instead we found a spot that was basically in the middle of open desert. We were close enough to the Visitor's Center that if a super rough sand/rainstorm came we could grab our stuff and run for at least some form of shelter behind a wall, but we were trying to be optimistic. We prepared our "feast" that wasn't exactly feast-like since we attempted to combine mac 'n cheese with cheese ravioli (blame Adam, I wanted to cook them separately), after having very, very strong soup (too much soup powder stuff, not a big enough pot for water). Unfortunately it was still pretty cloudy so we didn't really get to stargaze much but the moon was still mostly full and when the clouds cleared a little we got to see the beautiful night sky.

So that brings us to the end of my trip. We woke up in the morning, got a ride into Aqaba to the border, got through okay (no tourism police this time) and walked down to the Eilat Central Bus Station to catch our bus back up to Beer Sheva and take our packs off for the last time. A shower has never felt so amazing. Overall, it was a pretty fantastic trip despite the many mishaps and changes in plan. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I'm so glad I went.