Whenever I start the following story out with the question: "Have I ever told you about the time my tour group got pulled over in the Wadi Rum desert of Jordan?," I always get an eyebrow raised at me.To start this story off on the right foot, I need to say that first off, getting pulled over by the police authority in any country while traveling is not a situation a bunch of tourists want to find themselves in. Secondly, we were in the middle of a desert, several hours from civilization. No roads, no stop signs, no buildings, and no speed limits. Just blasting dunes in a 4x4 with our Bedouin guide and passing incredibly tall and beautiful rock formations at every turn. As it turns out, a few of these beautiful rock formations also come with a side of local police, and to make things even worse, we were also less than 20 miles from the Saudi Arabia border.
It was a stunningly gorgeous day in Wadi Rum, Jordan. After camping overnight in the desert with the local Bedouin, watching the Perseid meteor shower blast across the visible Milky Way, we loaded up into a few 4x4 jeeps for a half day desert tour. After a few minutes driving past the Bedouin camps, camel race track, and a lone railway, we were away from civilization as we knew it and our drivers decided it was time to have a bit of fun.
Blasting dunes in a desert is a fun activity. There is no other way to put it. Driving up and down mounds of sand at high speed and steep angles is something I could probably enjoy day after day. Couple that with the scenery of Wadi Rum and you have the makings of a perfect day. With many large rock formations rising out of the ground, some with ancient carvings from a simpler age and others taking the form of large arches, the desert of Wadi Rum is anything but empty.
With the exception of the local Bedouin, there is no one living in this particular desert. In fact, other than a few choice stops by our guide, we did not see any other sign of human life the entire day, except once. We approached another remarkably large rock from a distance and did not think it would be anything special compared to the previous dozen that we had just passed. We zoom on by at high speed and turn around to enjoy the scenery and noticed one extra detail - a truck hiding in the shade of the rock.
"I wonder if that is a cop," I thought; chuckling to myself at the thought of a cop hiding in the shade of a rock much like cops at home hide in the shade of a building. The truck's engine turns on and it pulls out behind us. "Holy #$@ that is a cop!" My heart sank.
We got pulled over in the middle of the desert, by a cop hiding in the shade of a massive rock.
At this point, I was a bit too nervous to take a picture of the scene, and in retrospect wish I would have. But when you are pulled over by a mysterious truck less than 20 miles from the Saudi Arabian border, you tend to not ask questions and have your passport at the ready.
The cop approached our vehicle and began to ask our driver questions in Arabic, much faster than my limited knowledge of the language could understand. If I had to guess, "license and registration" was probably among the top terms thrown around. All well and good, but as we found out our particular Bedouin driver did not actually have a license to drive a car. Oops.
After a short discussion, the security officer walked away, smiled at us, and we were on our way. Our English speaking tour guide informed us that it was all well and good as the officer and our driver were from the same tribe and would figure it out later. I'm guessing a few goats exchanged hands, a few glasses of tea were consumed, and everyone had a good laugh.
Our guide went on to tell us that Bedouin tribes in this part of the world tend to act as border security when a full military force is not available. In being so close to Saudi Arabia, the Bedouin are the first defense against smugglers trying to bring their wares over into Jordan to sell at higher prices. In this case, the security officer was on the lookout for goats, which apparently sell for much higher prices in the country and are smuggled quite frequently. Whether that was serious, a joke, or code for something far more sinister, I'll never know.
One thing I learned, when you are pulled over by a cop in the middle of the desert, you tend to not ask a lot of questions.
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Have you ever had a run-in with local law enforcement while traveling, either for good or for worse? If so, comment below and let us know about it!
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