Defying Death in Wadi Rum’s Raqabat Canyon

When I was arranging for an authentic Bedouin experience with Bedouin Guides, I knew I wanted a Jeep tour through the desert, a traditional Bedouin meal cooked underground, along with a night spent at their camps. While researching on other activities that were offered in Wadi Rum, I came across a hiking trail that looked like it may have been featured in the popular travel show "Departures", so I quickly signed our group up for the hike as well since it looked fun

What I thought was going to be your standard uphill, scenic hike turned out to be more of a hike of a lifetime.

Hiking in Wadi Rum, Jordan

Our adventure began with our guide leading us to the foot of the canyon, where our hike is to begin. There, he proceeded to hand out bottles of water, and a small snack for us to eat during one of our many breaks. Since we could not see any clearly marked trail head, we asked our guide where we began, and he pointed at a random face of the mountain.
Turns out the path is not marked, but rather, our guide knew the mountains so well he just "knew" the path through the mountains, and simply picked one most suited to our fitness levels.

As we climbed over rock after rock, the mountains became so steep we could no longer walk upright, and had to resort to "scrambling", a climbing technique where both the hands and feet are utilized. I felt like spider man, as I traversed through the mountain using my entire body.

An Incredible Amount of Effort

My lungs were burning, and the blisters on my feet ached, as we scrambled our way around dangerous cliffsides, and slid our way through the narrow crevices of Raqabat Canyon. Luckily with the help of our guide, we did not slip off the canyon to our demise, and managed to reach the other side of the mountains with only a few minor scrapes.

We finished our hike by climbing up a sand dune to get a panoramic view of the famous desert. There, our Wadi Rum adventure continued with an amazing Jeep tour of the desert, we enjoyed a delicious lunch prepared by our guide, before finally arriving at the Bedouin camp where we watched the sunset and enjoyed yet another delicious traditional Bedouin meal.

Wadi Rum is truly an unforgettable place, and has been the highlight of my trip to Jordan.

6 Ways You Can Support Our Site Today

Living the Dream is an independent travel blog covering global travel and lifestyle design and is not a subsidiary of any media organization. Our continued growth has always been because of you, our readers, supporting us along the way. To support our site today, we'd love it if you did one (or more) of the following:

1. Share this article with your friends and followers on social media via the buttons at the bottom of this page.
2. Follow us on social media at Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram.
3. Read another article via our recommendations above.
4. Book your next hotel with our affiliate link at Booking.com. We'll receive a small commission that helps us run this site at no added cost to you.
5. Shop using our Amazon.com affiliate links or our blogging affiliate links below and on our sidebar. Like our hotel link, we'll receive a small commission at no added cost to you.
6. Sign up for our newsletter to receive our newest articles direct to your inbox.

These actions may not seem like much, but if just 1% of our readers did a few of the above to help us out we'd grow faster than we ever have before and would never have to host another ad on this site again. Thanks for your support!