On The Road – TKH – Jordan Trail Part 8

With Wadi Rum behind me, a look ahead. Somewhere behind the mountains on the horizon is the Gulf of Aqaba which is where the trip is going to end. Between where I am standing and the Gulf is one small village, Titin, which supposedly has a supermarket. This is where I hope to get some water because the distance between the last water in Wadi Rum and the coast is too big to carry water all the way.

The acacia tree at the right margin of the image has the characteristic shape of the tree in areas where camel forage on the trees. Essentially no branch is going to survive if it protrudes into the range where the camels can get to it. Even though the twigs have spikes longer than the leaves on the twigs, the camel chomp down on the foliage as if they weren’t there.

Close to the Gulf one can see, as we did last year in Sinai, evidence of the geological history. As the plate was uplifted cracks in the bulk rock formed which were filled in by lava from below. This basalt was a different, darker color than the bulk rock. In this image you can see vertical stripes of basalt intrusions in the mountain on the horizon.

Nearby another view of such intrusions, this time from the side. In the right place you can see these dark stripes of basalt going through the landscape for miles.

Third to last Pass! Somewhere there behind the horizon ifs the Gulf of Aqaba and the end of the journey. I am feeling slightly worn out, mostly because I have not eaten enough for weeks now and the weight loss is catching up to me.

I have to find my way down from this pass which turned out to be a steep journey across lots of loose rock. Then I have to cross the wadi that’s running left to right and go up the wadi pointing to this vantage point from the mountain range on the horizon. I assumed at this point that the U-shaped notch on the horizon in the left third of the image is the next pass I have to go over. As it turned out, this was very fortunately not the case as the ascent to that pass is not for a hiker but for a climber. The next pass is actually farther to the left, hidden from view.

Look back to the pass from which the previous picture had been taking. There is a notch in the front mountain range in the rightmost fifth of the image, just to the left of the bush in front.

Titin, the village where I had hoped to find a supermarket is behind the pass, very much to the right outside the frame of the picture. While it had been the world’s most pathetic supermarket, it was being opened as I arrived and it had bottled water. Double bingo!

Second to last pass! The Gulf is in view. Across the Gulf is the Sinai peninsula and the town of Nueiba where we ended our trip through Sinai last year.

It will be yet another steep descent over loose rock. If you look closely you can see the path at the very bottom of the image near the right margin. At the bottom I will have to cross a giant flood plain and walk right up to the last mountain chain, the coastal mountains of the Gulf that you see just below the water in this image.

One last geological image of a basalt intrusion into bulk rock, this time from up close. The black stuff is basalt from lava while the white stuff is the bulk rock that got elevated when the Sinai peninsula and this side of the gulf were pushed up from below.

Everywhere else I typically hike, features like this are covered up by vegetation and it takes a trained eye to see the geology despite the cover.

A last look back from the Final Pass. Somewhere back there is Wadi Rum and I somehow made it through and over the mountain ranges between there and where I am standing. Not half bad.

The last pass! I can almost smell the ocean. The last night had been freezing cold. I woke up to hoar on the foot of my quilt. The closeness of Gulf leads to more moisture in the air than you would assume hiking in the desert.

Tow Bedouin invited me in for chai before I climbed up to this pass and counseled me against going over this pass. Once they heard what I had done the last few weeks they said that I should not worry, I would be ok. I had to go down the drainage in the shadow in this image. It was very rough and very steep with two drywalls to climb around.

The route has you go across the plain near the coast to some resorts and take a cab to Aqaba from there. With tourism down so much I did not think that there would be a taxi at those resorts, so I improvised. I saw what looked like a fire station to the right and made my way over there. I ended up causing a medium kerfuffle because behind the fire station, which actually was a mountain rescue station, was the jail and the entire area was a paramilitary security zone. Oops! The soldiers spoke no English, I spoke no Arabic and there was some commotion until an officer was raised who did speak English and was convinced quickly that I was harmless. As I passed the jail I found a taxi and 10 min later I was in Aqaba and I was DONE.

Aqaba is a full service town, I even found an adult beverage to wash down plenty of food.