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I wake to discover that there is a heron in our back yard. Yea, verily I do not jest. I also discover that India doesny like keneffe, so I finish her cold one as a slightly rubbery form of breakfast. The boys, in complete contradiction to the stereotype take ages to get ready, and India and myself are left in the lobby making small talk with only slightly dodgy Jordanian men who try and get us to pay 40JD for a taxi to Wadi Rum. We are fairly sceptical and mention a taxi driver yesterday who offered it for 25JD. "Really? If you get an offer like that, you can take my own car to Wadi Rum!" says one of them.

Once the boys have put on their makeup, we head into town to try and find a taxi. We purchase many bananas as a snack and then hail the first truck that comes into sight. The cheery driver agrees on 25JD. So, er, we are owed a car by that hotel man. I don't quite know when I am going to claim that off them.

The hour and a half drive takes us via a stunning panorama of Petra (the driver was a little confused at our attempts to take jumping photos in front of it) and then into the interiorish of Wadi Rum visitor centre. Fairly hungry by now despite the keneffe we are dismayed at the official tour prices - what we want to do would cost us around 50JD. A group of likely looking chaps are hanging around the entrance to the centre, and one of them approaches us and offers the same thing for 35JD. India and I are not sure - too used to travelling on our own as girls has made us more cynical than Everitte and Emlyn, but as our sugar levels rapidly lower our avarice wins out and we decide to hedge our bets. BEST DECISION EVER!!!

We call briefly to forage for nourishment at Wadi Rum Village where we stock up on large supplies of bread, water, peppers, apples, tinned homous (would NOT recommend it) and something that tasted vaguely of aubergines and was about a month out of date. Fortunately we noticed this only once we had consumed most of it and had I not idly examined the container we would have been none the wiser. Our guide is called Aghab and is a rather handsome bedouin type who rolls his Rs in a most attractive manner. We bond over our experience of Petra bedouins and I instantly take a more genuine liking to him, "ah yes, the bedouins there are not always real bedouin. And they like the women a little too much."

We initially alight at Lawrence's Spring where the great man himself supposedly used to wash himself. There are also some nabotean inscriptions which we examine, though for all we know they could have been written there a couple of years ago by some tourist-minded entrepreneurs. However, we start as we mean to go on - by climbing. Now, the spring itself is a fair distance up a rocky scree filled hill, but this doesn't stop us from resolving to climb all the way to the top in the hottest part of the day. 15 minutes later, nearly expired from the sunlight wearing down my feeble western constitution I survey the scene- Wadi Rum is quite an awesome desertscape. Intimidatingly vast rock formations just shaft up from the sandy floor sporadically, broken only by the occasional solitary jeep spanning across the horizon. Pretty cool, I think to meself, but I should probably get down from here first. The spring is not quite as impressive as the hike up there merits - there are a couple of stagnant pools with fur on the top, a fig tree, a plastic bottle and some Arabic grafitti. I can also see Aghab, a little confused, sitting in the shade of the jeep, waiting for us all to get off the rock. Little does he know what he has let himself in for.

At the next stop, a sort of chasm in the orange rock where there are some more nabotean carvings, we take a jumping photo trying to incorporate the orange sand and a random chap that turns up and also joins in. We do have rather limited success, but tis fun nonetheless. Beyond the carvings themselves the chasm continues and we climb up and around there further in than anyone else. Tis very fun and to celebrate we take a cheesy model-like snapshot of us half way up the rocks. Unfortunately getting back seems to be a little more of a challenge; India and I thankfully manage to complete it without the audience of 20 or so Arabic schoolboys and their teachers who appear on the scene as Emlyn and Everitte are tackling the most difficult part. When we finally emerge, we find Aghab in the shade sitting on his own carpet he had got out of the jeep. He learns fast this one, though he does say we should hurry up if we are going to see everything by sunset.

He attempts to tire us out by climbing a sand dune. He fails, though it very nearly works. Thank goodness we invested in such a large amount of bread and water. Next he takes us to two rock bridges and actually joins us on the climb up. I think he realises what we're all about. India and I are in bare feet which I think is preferable to pretty much anything else you could wear. At the second bridge we have our photos taken from the ground by a lovely American chap who grabs me camera and documents our descent most spendidly. India scales to the very top of the rock as the rest of us fail and linger below waiting for a small shape to come tumbling down like humpty dumpty. Once again, I curse myself for not forcing her to write her own eulogy, and put it in my mental list of things to do.

The only place we do not linger is Lawrence's house, which is, effectively, a pile of uninspiring stones in the middle of the desert. Finding too many tourists and not enough climbing material, we jump out, walk to the pile of stones, and then get straight back in. Aghab is surprised, but I think a little relieved.

The next stop is attained partly through India's first ever experience of driving. Pretty good first experience methinks to drive a hot-wired jeep in first gear across the Jordanian desert. The remaining three of us, only slightly jealous, decide to put the attention firmly back on ourselves. Obviously the only way to do this is to jump out of the back of the jeep. Emlyn stays in the back to notify the drivers, and Everitte and I sit in the sand in hysterics. Of course, getting back in proves to be harder than I anticipated, especially as Aghab then swaps with India and thus speeds up and slows down, making it painfully impossible to get back in. I start to wander whether this is his final solution in his endeavours to exhaust us before I launch myself at the back of the jeep and finally succeed. I hear later from India that Aghab said, "His is joking with you. Now maybe they will think twice." Perhaps, but probably not. Plus, this is not our last experience of being thrown out of the back of the jeep but Aghab and India, oh no.

Our final stop before camp is Windows desktop worthy, and of course I now have my own and better equivalent of the orange sand monitor background. We were also versedin a new and exciting game in the sand by Aghab involving sticks and pebbles and he even throws a drawing lesson in for free. Having the attention span and probably intellectual capacity of a gnat I only half finish my camel and pyramid masterpiece before joining the others in their quest for the best jumping-down-a-sand-dune-in-wadi-rum picture. Every time we want to take another, we must run back up the dune - another cunning ploy by Aghab methinks…as we finally leave this peaceful place, the sun is beginning to set. Time to get to camp.

We watch the sun set from the top of a rock above base camp, seated in a ripped out car seat that you can swivel around depending on whether you are admiring sunrise or sunset. I don't quite know how it got up there, but it is beautifully absurd. We are fortunate to have arrived on a quiet day, with the only others there being 3 volunteers (what a good idea, must look into that one), an American couple and the bedouins and guides running the camp, including a wonderfully jovial man who encourages us all after a very good and filling supper, to dance to the oud and drum music provided live by Mahmoud. Being the nerd I am I get overly excited at the prospect of a working oud being so very close to my personage and cannot help but go and have a go on it. This experiment turns into a mini-session as Mahmoud plays the oud and I bang on a drum keeping relatively good time. And thrown into the packageis the bonus of a fewextra pieces of baklava. I am more than somewhat overjoyed and cannot remove the probably slightly alarming grin from my face until I finally fall asleep, staring up at the stars and hearing nothing but the breeze and the bedouins turning in for the night.

I must say that although a lie in would have been more sensible, the sunrise with not a soul in the world in sight was worth waking up for. A part of me wants to stay here forever, perhaps working in the camp and learning oud and even maybe learning those stupid tongue twisters Aghab was trying to teach us. Alas, after a brief breakfast and more delicious sweet and herby tea (tastes a bit like rosemary, though I am told it is sage…?) we head off back to Wadi Rum village. I want to take the oud with me. I decide against it, though resolve to get oud lessons once back in Damascus. When I return here with the Cretin (yes YOU Mirella) I will be an oud master, AHHHH ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaa etc.

India forgets her jewellery and so we three are unceremoniously deposited in the desert and told, "a lot of people like to walk in the desert in the morning," while Aghab and his new favourite go back to retrieve aforementioned items. Our plans to scare them vary from hiding in the crevice of a rock to stealing some camels off one of the camel herders and going on our own adventure to collapsing dead on the ground to be found motionless as they return. Fortunately our decision is made for us when we are picked up by another jeep that takes us back to the village. In it is Mahmoud, so it is just as well I didn't try to steal his oud…

The experience at Wadi Rum served to differentiate greatly between a genuine welcome of (I admit) paying guests and the not so genuine one we received in Petra. I know which one I prefer, and I know which one I will be returning to as soon as I find the time, money and excuse. But for now, we traverse the country and head to a place known as, THE DEAD SEA.