Glamping in Mars.. the Wadi Rum desert

The previous post in this series is here..

We raced out of Petra towards Wadi Rum desert to catch the sunset there. It was supposed to be the highlight of the evening.

We stopped at the mountain sides to see the desert from a distance for two minutes. Rest of the time it was just driving. We saw the original railroad that the Ottoman Empire had that was bombed out by the locals to help the British divide and conquer them.

After 2+ hours we showed up at the camp.

The terrain here is out of this world.. a lot of Alien movies are shot here. Martian was also shot here. Everything has a red glow to it. The sand eroded rocks formations look unique.

The person at the reception told us that we were the only guests in the entire camp for the night, thanks to flight cancelations and state department warnings! He was sad. He said normally the place is full two days before Christmas. Today we were the only visitors for not just this camp but most of the camps on this section of the desert.

Our guides realized there was not enough time to catch an open jeep ride or camel ride to go see the sunset from the dunes.. So they said "just go up to the top of the hill in the camp and you will get the view!".

We walked up, took pictures, saw yet another group of cats there and walked back down. It was eerily silent.

They would turn on the hot water for 30 minutes to an hour just for us given the camp was empty. We agreed on a time and it worked out. There was a dining tent and a post dinner fireside tent. We were the only visitors. The cooks were from Egypt and both of them did a wonderful job serving us vegetarian dishes. Did I mention the cabins were really nice inside! 

Got my paruppu sadham and roti (the Jordanian version) and was happy! We had some good tea next to a fire, joked around for 30 minutes and it was time to go sleep. It was freezing outside and the cats kept trying to get into the cabins. Some of us were already showing signs of allergies thanks to the cats and we were running low on Claritin supplies!

The night sky is supposed to be amazing here.

We were able to see a star studded sky with our naked eyes after they adjusted to the dark, but there was simply too much light pollution from the camp itself. They refused to turn off the flood lights. Then there was light from all the other camps. We spent an hour sitting above the last cabin on the hill to take these pictures. Most of them are 10 second exposures..

a sample..

A gallery of night sky portraits..

By this time we got worried texts from the ladies on why we didn't come back. I tried to clean the skylight filter on my SLR as it was showing hazy images.. only to drop it on the floor in the dark. That "clink" sound of glass breaking was not good. Guess San is going to find out that I broke a 50$ filter by reading this blog..

We had a good nights sleep but we all had to set an alarm to catch the 30 minute hot water window before breakfast. I woke up earlier and ran up the hill again to catch some golden hour photos before sunrise. They were "meh".. and by the time everyone assembled, the sun was up!

A candid shot of a scared San.. she is afraid of all dogs and cats and animals in general.. these cats were very aggressive and woud hiss at us and try to scratch!

A better pic after I shooed the cat to the side.. 

A video highlight of Wadi Ram!

we drove out of Wadi Rum (Valley of the Moon is what it means) after saying bye to the camp..to some amazing views in the haze after a simple breakfast. There was no milk for tea. Apparently cows milk in an alien concept here. The cheese they have is all goat cheese. It was good.

It was a 3+ hour drive to our last destination..

Day 2 at Death Valley

On day 1 we had covered Panamint area (Darwin falls, Panamint Valley road) and had headed to Stovepipe wells to see Mosaic Canyon just at Sunset and turned back.

Day 2 saw us heading straight to Scotty's Castle. A real Spanish Castle built in the middle of the desert during the gold rush years. A gold rush triggered by a fraud Scotty!

You can go read about it here.. 

They continue his conman tradition by collecting tickets at the door and then telling you "No backpacks, no Tripods as we cannot let anything tip over in the castle". They also have strict rules on where you can walk in the castle and have the original expensive rugs from the 1920's covered in plastic. 

So it was a challenge taking photos inside.. and Balaji told me "Imagine if you could do this in HDR!".. so I did try this with some high ISO settings and used a gun hold to steady myself on the ground for every exposure bracketed series of shots while the tour guide and the rest of the gang would wait for me. The guide did not want to leave me out of her sight and I was a royal pain for her... but hey, didnt pay those bucks for the entrance if we were not going to get pictures, right?!

Here are some photos from the Castle trip. The rest are in the Galleries either under HDR or under Architecture..

Inside the castle it was pretty dark and so you can imagine trying to get shots with 1/60 as the over exposed setting with as large an f-stop as possible to capture @17mm!

and finally my favorite. BB had the idea to take this shot and had set up the kids and there were all about to walk out of the building! The guide lady was pushing me to finish my last shots inside the building as she wanted to lock up the castle behind me (it was Thanksgiving day and we were pretty much the only group there!) and that is when I saw the kids still staring up.. Had to photoshop BB and the tour lady's feet from the staircase but it was worth the time..

After Scotty's we went to Ubehebe crater  which was a visual treat. Took a lot of shots to do stitch work. 

Here is a sample ..

This is made from nine 30 MP images taken with the camera in Portrait orientation and merged in Photoshop where my shadow was cropped out..

Previous example (already in earlier post) is this one..

Then we went to Titus canyon and went on a trail outside the canyon by mistake. After going a mile with no shade in sight we came back and realized our mistake. Then decided to go in for a short hike in the right direction and took pictures. It was late by then.

So we cut it short and had lunch at Stovepipe Wells store which is great because there is a nice store, gas station and an area in the shade where you can eat your home cooked food and nice restrooms. What more can you ask for in the middle of the desert next to a bunch of sand dunes?

After lunch we went to the dunes. It was already 3 PM by then. The kids, having got their energy back raced into the Mesquite dunes and had the time of their life! Even today they tell us that the best part of the trip was playing in the dunes.. We need to find some dunes closer to home.

Another interesting thing about death valley. At 3PM it will be 76 F. By 4:15 it will drop to 70 and by 5:30 it will drop to 52 F. It drops rapidly in a 2 hour span.  We learned our lesson on day one and started wearing full sleeve shirts for the rest of the trip to avoid sun burn and the chills!

We thought of catching the sunset at some view point on the way back.. but my birthday dinner at Denny's could not be postponed and off we went on our long ride back to civilization.

The travelog will continue..