june 25-26, 1999

well, i’ve made my decision to leave petra, and i’m back on the kings’ highway,

again racing the sun south, this time towards wadi rum, the magical and

sprawling desert of lawrence of arabia. right near the saudi border. sure, petra

was not to be missed, but a desert full of thirsty, binocular-ed, and

water-bottled tourists feeding off the sales-hungry locals (or was it the other

way around) have turned the spectacular rose-colored landscape, the

wind-sculpted canyons, and the human carved temples into camera-clicking

turnstiles of greed and eco-tourism. simply put, there were just too many damn

tourists for me. i had to get out.

so — two twisting and turning hours later, i arrive, again without incident, at

wadi rum. whereas conventional wisdom is bringing busloads of daily tourists to

its northern, more accessible neighbor, petra, the more unconventional,

alternative scoop among those in the know – is wadi rum. i can tell by its empty

parking lot and its plethora of available and aggressive bedouin guides that

this place is also hungry for business. but not many of petra’s adoring hordes

have continued on to wadi rum. so of course “business” is a little different out

here in the middle of the jordanian-arabian outback. even before i can park my

car, i am approached by three different white-caftaned guides – offering me jeep

tours, camel caravans, sunset hikes – overnight, for days, weeks, whatever i

want. i decide to park and check things out a little more carefully.

i meet a young peach-fuzzed graduate archeology student from canada named cabot.

he’s wearing wire glasses, green army pants, and a safari hat. he has a large

steel-framed backpack with aluminum pots hanging from it, and he’s nosing his

way around some of the guides too. it turns out he doesn’t have any money, but i

figure his knowledge and more than a little fluency in arabic will be well worth

my picking up the tab. at least ninety per cent of it. we narrow down our tour

guides to no-nonsense salim, who takes us over to his spare, concrete,

muslim-decorated house and spells out our options to us. we decide to go with

the overnight economy package. we get salim, his jeep, a sleeping bag and

blanket for me, and the sunset tour of all the well known hotspots in nearby

wadi rum. and because it’s the economy tour, we also get the chance to buy our

own food for dinner in the local arabic grocery store. i remember adnan’s

delicious concoction from the sinai, so we get a can of tuna, some noodles, some

flat bread, and canned peas. cabot fills up three gallon jugs of local water to

wash with and boil for dinner.

we’re off. bumping and humping our way over this implausibly-huge, uncivilized,

sandy desert. there are no longer any official trails, just the random tire

marks of criss-crossing jeeps. every once in a while we see a camel caravan,

both of local bedouin and the more obvious tourists. we stop at t.e. lawrence’s

former british outpost where the great commander wrote: “our little caravan fell

quiet, ashamed to flaunt itself in the presence of such stupendous hills.”

there is so much open sky and space, such a contrast to the dominating manmade

verticality of petra. of course there are also massive eruptions of rust colored

mountain ranges, and lavender landscapes of wind-carved granite and sandstone

which make the desert seem painted by the hand of allah himself. we travel into

the “valley of the moon”, where by sunset, we can see the white crescent of the

moon rising on one horizon and the red-orange globe of the sun sinking on the

other.

but now salim throws us a curveball. he unpacks our jeep of its sleeping gear

and cargo, and says “salaam”, he’ll see us in the morning. this is a little

unsettling – to say the least. i thought we had engaged a guide – overnight. we

have no tent, no fire making tools, and no courage. salim tries to make light of

it, saying we will have no problem, it’s perfectly safe out here. “what about

insects and scorpions,” i ask. he looks at me like i’m crazy. but when i

continue to protest, he says that it’s simply impossible for him to stay with

us; he has to go back to his family and his life “in town”. cabot and i consider

going it alone, but even my valiant friend looks a little skeptical.

i spend the next half hour bickering with salim, demanding he stay with us like

we keep insisting, he agreed to. he must think i’m even more hard-headed than

some of his bedouin enemies. finally he comes up with a solution. he will take

us to a bedouin family he knows who live out here in the desert, and if they

agree, we will pay them a token fee to spend the night. he, salim, will still

pick us up in the morning. okay. we agree. in five minutes, surprisingly right

around the sunset ridge, we find a bedouin family who are obviously full time

residents of wadi rum. we see two large, double-peaked desert tents, a pen full

of live goats, a chicken coop, a tin shack for shelter, a rusted-out abandoned

car, and a few tools and collectables against the side of the cliffs. we also

see a large, gregarious desert party in full-blown action – in italian.

cabot and i slide in almost unnoticed. salim makes his deal and is off. we

simply throw our gear to the side of the main tent and try to mix it up with a

few words of italian (me) and a few other words of arabic (him). the italians

are mixed friends and family and seem fun-loving and more than a little drunk on

a few bottles of some fine italian wine they’ve brought with them from perugia.

however, we soon discover they are not staying the night. no, their

white-caftaned and red kaffia-ed guides, adudullah and mohammed, are taking them

back tonight; it’ll be cabot and i alone with a bedouin, arabic-speaking family

of four: a grandfatherly, older man and his slightly younger-looking wife, a

younger woman of indeterminate age and a still younger boy, about six.

now things are quiet. very quiet. cabot and i have been left in the “party” tent

while the bedouins have moved over to their own. we’ve spread out our sleeping

gear and are now trying to make ourselves some dinner. adnan’s famous tuna

casserole. simple – boil some water, throw in the noodles, heat up the tuna in a

pan, throw in the peas, and voila. well, it’s been half an hour and we’re still

on steps one and two: make a fire and open the can of tuna. first off, we

haven’t brought any wood, and although i suggest just using what i’ve seen lying

in piles all around the camp, cabot thinks it’s rude. so he goes off trying to

gather his own. meanwhile i’m working my swiss army knife, trying to open this

belligerent can of tuna. we’re both equally successful. he comes back with about

five scraggly pieces of what, at another location, would be called “kindling”,

and i’ve gotten the can open about half way. yesiree, we sure are the rugged

outdoorsmen.

finally, the younger woman of indeterminate age comes over to see how we’re

doing. she has the courtesy and self restraint to not laugh outright at us, and

she wanders off again. in a few minutes though, she comes back with an armful of

supplies: a fire starter, a lamp, some newspaper, a can opener, some decent pots

and pans, and some more wood. boy, do we feel ridiculous – and relieved. soon

the fire is started properly, the young boy and the older couple are sitting

around our fire, and we are making a truly improvised desert feast. the young

woman, whose name is sameera, has insisted over cabot’s initial refusal to bring

over some of the family’s larder. before we know it, our tuna casserole has been

augmented with canned tomatoes, canned chick peas, and even some kind of tough,

dried meat. cabot and i look at each other; we’re afraid to ask what it is. but

soon we’re all eating and laughing away – cabot trying out some of his rusty

arabic, me signing away and teaching a few welcome words of english. my mime is

succeeding almost as well as his arabic (whose formality does not seem to

translate well into this bedouin dialect), and we are all having a fine time.

we’re in the middle of lawrence of arabia’s wadi rum – with a native bedouin

family – miles and centuries away from any signs of western civilization –

speaking pidgin arabic and clown language – and i for one, feel incredibly –

privileged.

it’s now bedtime. our newly adopted family for the night has retired back to

their “private” quarters (i don’t think anything is really private out in the

desert). cabot has taken his sleeping bag outside the tent to sleep under the

star-filled, sheltering sky, and i’m on my own, tucked into my rented sleeping

bag, under my rented, but amazingly authentic bedouin tent. it feels like it

should be another nearly “perfect moment”. but i can’t sleep. i’m tired, yes,

but for some unknown reason, i’m also agitated. perhaps it’s just the immensity

of the situation – of the desert itself. perhaps it’s the strains of arabic

music i hear cascading off the surrounding cliffs. perhaps it’s – something

else.

i decide to get up and walk out into the desert. under the huge night sky.

towards the music. within fifteen minutes, i’ve reached its source. i see an

elaborate camp circled around a burning fire – like an apparition suddenly

appearing in the middle of a void. there are cars, trucks, and generators – at

the foot of the cliffs – a complete non sequitur in this pre-civilized

landscape. i can see men and women sitting around a long, white-tableclothed

horseshoe table. the men are in white caftans and kaffias, the women in fine

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dresses, some traditional, some highly westernized and fashionable. some of the

women are dancing for the men. belly dancing. finger cymbals. others are leaning

over the men at the tables, flirting, kissing, whispering – what? i don’t know

what this kind of event is called out here in wadi rum in the summer of 1999,

but i get the gist. it’s something between a well-heeled corporate orgy and 1001

tales of the arabian nights.

i walk a little closer. i’m spotted. a heavy-set, kaffia-ed security person

barks something at me in arabic. it sounds fierce. i go into my

self-deprecating, no speak english clown act (“no english, no english. sor-ry.

bye-bye. sor-ry”), and i take my expedient leave. i rub my magic lantern, and

disappearing just as quickly as i appeared – poof – i’m gone.

another half hour, and i’m completely alone. and i do mean – alone. i’m stunned

with the overwhelming magnitude of the place’s simplicity and austerity. i mean,

not one person in the entire world knows where i am at this moment. not my

friends or colleagues back in LA. not my parents. not my childhood buddies far

away in new york. not my hip, international e-mail correspondents around the

globe. not a single ex-girlfriend. not even cabot or my bedouin hosts. no, not a

single solitary soul on the planet could phone me, trace me, touch me, talk to

me, kiss me, or even find me. if i don’t walk back to my bedouin tent, i’ll be

swallowed up by this desert and never heard of, or seen, again. what an

incredible feeling. of smallness. of anonymity. of transcendence. one of the

most powerful, liberating elements of travel itself. the total loss of identity

to a foreign culture. to a place. to a time – to a desert – to a night sky – to

this night sky…

i’m now another hour away from the cliffs, out in the flatlands of the

all-encompassing, lonely desert. there’s no sound. no music, no human

conversation, no crickets, birds — no nothing. i’ve walked straight for maybe

two miles, taken off my sandals, and i’m lying on my back, staring up at the

sky. there are more stars than i’ve ever imagined. every few minutes i see, or

think i see, comets – or asteroids – or galaxies – shooting and hurtling across

the sky, leaving tails and trails of light. me? i’m as insignificant as a grain

of sand. i’ve given up all caution and surrendered to the desert. lying on my

back in the sand, shoeless, defenseless, i remember salim’s look of utter

disbelief when i was so worried just eight hours ago about scorpions and

insects. i now take it to mean that there’s nothing out here to worry about.

nothing that’s alive. nothing that can harm me. i don’t know if i’m crazy or

just naive, but i don’t want to think about it realistically – about how

vindictive and destructive this same desert could be on another night – when the

balmy summer stillness was replaced with scorching winds, deadly enemies,

parching thirst and nothing to eat.

no, tonight, i don’t want to think at all. because tonight i’m no one. not “me”.

not an individual. i have no identity. i?m not an artist, a writer, an educator.

not a traveler. not a son, brother, uncle, boyfriend, poet, con, whatever.

tonight i’m nothing. just a piece, a grain of the desert. an infinitesimal speck

of the universe. in sync. blown away. inconsequential. no ego. no self. no

pride. no loss, no gain, no bank account, social security number, birth

certificate, citizenship, personhood, e-mail. no hi-roller, no loser, winner, no

ambition, no nonsense, no logic, no fear, no words. silence. rolling over on my

side, then again on my back, unknown to the entire universe, i carve circles in

the sand with my fingers, with my toes. i am as mad as lawrence himself. i am

lost, invincible, invisible, nothing, everything; i am painfully and

ecstatically no longer- ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

by violet-colored dawn, i have somehow dragged myself back to my tent. my

“family” is awaiting me with a cup of hot tea, some reviving cookies, and many

questioning eyes. “where have i been? am i okay?” i smile reassuringly and crawl

back into my sleeping bag for an hour or so of rest. i am awakened in the blink

of two tired eyes by the sound of a jeep. it’s a messenger from salim – one of

his teenage nephews, hamid. actually, it’s our surrogate ride back to base camp.

fortunately however, hamid is in no hurry (i don’t think there really is such

thing as “hurry” out in the desert). from what cabot can surmise, the older

woman has asked hamid to give her, and two other boys who have suddenly

appeared, a ride to the goat herds. and cabot and i have been invited along for

the ride.

we’ve been hugging the cliffs for about twenty minutes, and have now parked our

jeep in a surrounding alcove of rugged desert mountains. there are overhanging

cliffs forming a series of protective caves where we can see the remnants of

several abandoned campfires. i can’t help but wonder how many families or tribes

of wandering bedouin have eaten and sheltered here over the centuries. the boys

have hopped out of the jeep and have attacked the mountain. they scramble up its

sheer vertical facade like mountain goats themselves. it seems literally

impossible to do, even as cabot and i watch with our own eyes. they have it

down, the older, stronger boys pulling up the smaller one, standing on each

others shoulders, grape-vining, leapfrogging over each other with boundless

energy and concentration. in five minutes they’ve scaled a precipitous five

hundred foot wall of stone and desert brush, and have disappeared over the ridge

of the horizon.

cabot and i sit down in the middle of the massive alcove with our gracious host,

and cabot extracts from her that the older man is her father and that sameera

and the young boy are her children. she’s had many other children, and although

several have died over the years, she continues to smile her partially-toothless

smile throughout her story. of course, maybe i’m projecting my own urban spin on

these simple desert lives, but life seems good for her and her family. it seems

so much less complicated than mine and the civilized world’s. so much more

immediate, practical, real. food, weather, shelter, family. she doesn’t worry

about income, security, career, success, vanity, loneliness. i even doubt she

worries about death. or i like to think she doesn’t. she doesn’t need a

therapist, doesn’t wrestle with herself about her self esteem, what she needs to

do with her leisure time, her recreational income. no, she needs to milk the

goats, make the cheese, make the flat bread, keep the camp tidy, protect her

loved ones, and sleep under the stars. maybe she yearns for a friend far away,

or looks beneath her eyes and skin for a lost child or loved one, or maybe she’s

saddened when she pulls up her tent for another change of season. how would i

ever know? but sitting here in the vastness of the wadi, listening, sharing,

reflecting with her, i feel, and perhaps she feels, and perhaps cabot feels too,

part of each other. part of the whole. part of the patchwork and

inter-connectedness of history and humanity. we look at each other, into each

others’ sad, wise, accepting eyes… and… we smile.

the boys are scampering down the mountainside. their shoulders are draped with

heavy goatskins full of fresh warm goat milk. cabot and i simply can not refuse

the offer to try some; it would be an insult to do so. the voice of my beverly

hills “travel medicine doctor” is pounding in my paranoid eardrums: “do NOT

drink unboiled water or UN-pasteurized milk!” oh well, i bite the bullet;

sometimes you just do what you gotta do. the milk is very sour and acrid. we

hope to survive. soon we’re back in the jeep and “back home” at the bedouin

tents. in the next moment, hamid has loaded our gear and it’s time to go. we

reluctantly exchange our goodbyes, not being able to promise seeing each other

ever again, not taking addresses to mail copies of photos to – and – just as

instantaneously as we appeared, we’re gone. in another hour, i’ve put cabot on

the bus north to petra, and i’m back on the road south to aqaba – alone.

a lot happens in a short amount of time when you travel. the time is cram-packed

with chance meetings, memorable events, ephemeral friends, and intense

experiences. it’s exciting, demanding, and expansive. it’s so much fuller, more

alive than the routine of daily life back home. i can see how people become

travel junkies. perhaps i’m a travel junkie – at least for two or three months a

year. but what would life be with nothing but constant travel? it would become a

routine itself – of constantly changing faces, scenery, and memorable

experiences. exciting, demanding, expansive – yes. but i think it would be hard

too – no home, no roots, no one to share your stories, your past with. it would

be lonely. in fact, as i’m driving south towards aqaba, towards my next unknown

adventure, towards my next unknown place to rest my head, it is, i am – lonely.

one of the tradeoffs, i tell myself, of freedom.

and so as i roll into the southern capital of the hashemite kingdom of jordan, i

am once more chewing my own cud, mulling over life and its mysteries, my

adventures and misadventures, my ongoing sense of isolation through it all. i’m

okay. it’s what i’ve chosen. what i’ve created. i am a lucky man.