Yesterday I wrote about my arrival in Wadi Rum, the desert in Jordan where the movie Lawrence of Arabia was filmed. We spent all day on a jeep tour of the impressive landmarks.

I’m staying with Green Desert, one of the top-rated Bedouin camps in Wadi Rum. The owner, Nadjah, is so welcoming and I’m grateful for his hospitality. Here’s the smiling man himself:

And here is the place I call home for two nights. And I do mean that — home. This Bedouin family welcomes its guests as one of their own. We are so well taken cafe of.

We sleep two-by-two in these tents, which have full beds and electricity. This is glamping at its finest! There’s bathroom facilities and a kitchen just behind those tents, plus a main gathering tent for evening programs.

This is Eid, the owner of Wild Wadi Rum and a family member of Nadjah. Both companies operate at this same campground and share resources and evening activities.

Here’s a shot of my tent:

I’m rooming with Ashley, a nurse in D.C. who grew up in Pasadena. Small world!

After an hour or so of downtime for a nap, shower, or relaxation, everyone gathers in the main tent for music, dinner, and dancing.

Shoes off!

Here is our group for the evening — a mix of people from all over the world.

Nadjah and Eid’s family members sing traditional Bedouin songs and invite us to participate.

Clearly we all get into it. Commence the conga line!

And now for some instrumental performances:

Next up it’s time to eat. Our chef has prepared a Bedouin meal of chicken and potatoes cooked UNDERGROUND with hot charcoals over a period of many hours. Here’s the big reveal as they brush off the oven top…

The chef has also prepared a generous spread of side dishes (lots of veggie stuff if you’re not a meat eater). My favorite is the grilled eggplant that melts in my mouth.

After dinner, more dancing led by Eid’s young and energetic son. He’s got moves!

I traveled with Katie and Yasmin (dancing above) during the jeep tour all day and they told me a funny story. On the taxi ride to Wadi Rum, they were squeezed in the backseat with the driver’s young son (maybe he was 12?), who was clearly infatuated with these girls. He asked Katie something that she couldn’t understand, but she nodded politely anyways. AND THEN HE KISSED HER! Ha! His dad, the driver, was livid. Katie was a good sport about it. We laughed so hard when she told us this story.

One more observation to share — as you may have noticed from the photos, Bedouin women have no part in hosting guests at the camp. Men do everything — the driving, guiding, cooking, cleaning, and entertaining. Even young Bedouin boys help out (as evidenced by our dancing guru above), but women are completely excluded. I do not see a single one the entire time I’m in Wadi Rum. From what I gather, each Bedouin family who has a campground for hosting tourists then has a second area where their family actually lives. This is presumably where women of all ages stay. My guess is they have a role in washing linens for the campsite beds, but that’s about as far as they can participate from afar. I watch our chef cooking food in the campground kitchen and he works alone except for another male assistant chef.

I recently watched the Jordan episode of the Ricky Gervais-produced series An Idiot Abroad (“Camels are the ships of the desert and we ended up with the Titanic” — oh my gosh, it’s hysterical, and available for streaming on Netflix), and his Bedouin hosts say it’s forbidden for him to see any women in their society. A little on-line digging about the role of women in Bedouin society doesn’t reveal much information.

The dance party winds down and bedtime approaches. But I’ve still got one more full day in Wadi Rum… see you tomorrow!

Green Desert graciously hosted my two-day visit in exchange for photography services. Opinions are my own and I have no hesitation in saying this Wadi Rum experience is truly fantastic.