In October I visited the Wadi Rum in Jordan. We were five guys and we had a little over a week over there. The trip was supposed to 9 nights in total but a denied boarding case with Turkish Airlines trashed our first day and we ended up with 8 nights on site. Thanks to the EC 261/2004 regulation it was only a minor inconvenience, though…
From the Amman airport we took a minibus to Wadi Rum. If you’re three or four people you’ll probably be just fine with a regular taxi but we were five people with plenty of luggage so we figured a minibus would be better. Our plane arrived at 3 AM so we reasoned the less hassle the better and we arranged the all the transportation and cash issues before leaving home. There was some skepticism about how this all would work out but in the end the logistics were very easy apart from the denied boarding. We left Helsinki at 6 PM and woke up in Wadi Rum 8 AM only 14 hours after the departure. We were 24 hours behind the original schedule but we got a free ride thanks to the compensation money.
Abu Maileh Tower: Salim (5+, 100m) – October 14th, 2012
Before leaving home we thought it would be +35 celsius in Wadi Rum. In reality it was only +28 celsius but it was hot enough to trash any plans of climbing in the sun. We browsed through the guide book for a plan B and reasoned a short route on the north side would be best for the first day.
The Salim route had the typical Wadi Rum climbing. The climbing was never too hard but there were some exposed sections which made it interesting. The route is a very nice route for your first route of the trip. In a couple of hours after leaving the camp site you’ll have a very pretty scenery on the top. Thanks to the central location the summit is also a very good view point for scoping all the longer routes in the neighborhood.
