Living With the Bedouins: The Beginning

Once the region's nomadic people, the Bedouin are known for their hospitality. The theory is today they take you in and tomorrow you will do the same for them - a deeply ingrained ingrained sense of Karma to facilitate survival in a rather inhospitable desert.

In 1985 many of the Bedouins were still living in the caves in and around the stone city of Petra. Then tourism and the government intervened forcing them to move into a newly constructed nearby village. Today many still visit Petra daily to operate small curio stalls and coffee shops, offer donkey rides and act as impromptu tour guides to the less regimented travelers.

I met Salem on top of a mountain overlooking the famous "Treasury" (as featured in Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail"). After sharing a pot of the over-sugared tea that I have come to know all too well, he offered to take me up to the "Monastery," Petra's lesser known, but equally impressive site. Stopping along the way for tea about 2 more times, we made our way chatting about Petra, the Bedouin and tourism.

As the sun began to set it was time to leave, but instead of saying goodbye and heading back to my hotel for a boring and isolated night (or worse with the strange Czech man who had befriended me), I accepted an invitation to the Bedouin village to attend an engagement celebration.

With men and women gathering separately, Salem delivered me into the hands of some lovely girls in their late teens who shepherded me into the women's house. We ate mensaf, saffron rice piled high on a large communal plate and topped with lamb stewed in yoghurt. I tried to figure out what was happening, but my lack of Arabic and the limited English skills of those around me proved challenging. It would seem, however, that the men and women sit in different but nearby houses and socialize. The men, in a seemingly rare display of domestic servitude, cook. The entire family celebrates. With sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles and aunts in the dozens, this is a large affair.

After dinner I joined Salem again for a tour of the village. As we walked through the streets it seemed as nearly every 4th house in the 4,000 person village housed a relative of his. We stopped at a few homes to say hello and, yes, drank more sugary tea. Bedouin hospitality was becoming more than just a text box in the Lonely Planet guidebook, but a reality.

The next morning after a good sleep back in my hotel in Wadi Musa (Petra's tourism-driven town), I returned to the village to meet Salem and hike into Petra from a different entrance. Like many places I have traveled, things move slower than in the West. A meeting time of 8:30 am meant a departure time of 10:30 am after a visit to an aunt who upon our arrival whipped up a breakfast of generous proportions and introduced me to a dramatic Turkish soap opera dubbed into Arabic.

Day two with Salem included more sights, more chatting, more trust and an invitation to join him and two others (another Bedouin and his Dutch girlfriend) on a camping adventure to "Little Petra" a neighboring outcropping of the stone city 8km from the major attraction. I checked out of my hotel and leaving my big bag with Salem's family slept in a traditional Bedouin tent made of goat's wool after enjoying a warm campfire-cooked meal of chicken and vegetables in a nearby cave inhabited by a man named Abduhla. The cave was cozy – complete with carpets and a gas lamp. This began my time living with the Bedouins. For the next five days I would live like a Bedouin, eating and sleeping simply, making fires, drinking sugary tea and exploring the culture and landscape.