Duration
5 hours
Group size
Up to 7
Language
English, Arabic
Five hours, one jeep, seven stops. We head out from the visitor centre through the gap between Jebel Rum and Jebel Um Ishrin, then east to Khazali siq — a cleft in the rock where two thousand years of Thamudic and Nabataean carvings sit at head height, including a woman giving birth and a pair of bare feet. After that: Lawrence's spring, the red dunes, lunch cooked over a fire in the shade of an overhang, and Um Fruth rock bridge, which you climb if you fancy it and photograph if you don't. What this actually feels like: the jeep is a 1980s Land Cruiser with bench seats in the open back. There are no seatbelts back there, the track is corrugated for long stretches, and you will finish the day coated in fine red dust — bring sunglasses, leave the contact lenses in the case. Between June and September the midday air sits around 40C and the metal bodywork is too hot to lean on. Seven passengers maximum. If you book as a pair, we don't sell the other five seats to strangers. Departures at 8am or 1pm.
We are Zalabia, born in Rum village, and our grandfather was walking goats up these wadis before the asphalt reached the valley. Three generations later the camp sits under the eastern face of Jebel Um Ishrin — better mattresses now, still no wifi, still the same fire. Between the six of us we drive the jeeps, keep the camels, cook the zarb and argue about football. Our drivers navigate by rock shape rather than GPS, which is how we reach Barrah canyon while the convoys are still queuing at Um Fruth. We don't do costume Bedouin evenings. You get sweet tea, straight answers about which routes are worth your money, and more stars than you have any use for.
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