By day, the dusty swaths of the great Wadi Rum play host to the clapping hoofs of wandering Bedouin camel herds and the wild whistles of sandy breezes that squeeze their way through the various bluffs of the Jebel hills. By night, the stars twinkle overhead, stark and untainted by metropolitan light, and an eerie celestial glow filters its way through the rocky gorges and the looming hoodoos of the land, making this ancient canyon like nowhere else on earth.

Wadi Rum is famed as the historical stomping ground of Lawrence of Arabia, and hailed as one of the finest eco tourist destinations in all of Jordan. Accordingly, visitors flock here to glimpse the crumbling remains of what is thought to be the old colonel’s former home in the desert, or to scale the various limestone ridges under the tutelage of local Wadi Rum tour guides. Others simply come to marvel at the gravity-defying geological formations that abound throughout the region, from the legendary Seven Pillars of Wisdom, to the great Umm Fruth Rock Bridge and the Khaz'ali Canyon, complete with its wealth of ancient Nabataean cave paintings.