Visiting Mars on Earth: Jordan’s Wadi Rum Desert
Jordan is a land of enduring mysteries and its otherworldly landscape, with its Martian-like terrain, holds an unspoken beauty that captivates the soul.
Matt Damon stood at this very spot when he shot the Hollywood film The Martian.
Photograph by Jocelyn Dimaculangan for the Daily Tribune
The red sand dunes in this remote destination make you think you’ve been transported to the Red Planet.
Between my toes, I feel the fine sand — but its crimson hue is unlike anything I’ve seen before. I am surrounded by huge, futuristic-looking domes with clear, floor-to-ceiling panels, showcasing the seemingly extra-terrestrial landscape filled with craggy mountains in the distance.
Is this Mars?
Jordan’s Wadi Rum: the red-sand valley of extraterrestrial beauty.
No, this is the Wadi Rum Desert in Jordan, and anyone can visit without undergoing any training as an astronaut.
Wadi Rum, which means “Valley of the Moon” in Arabic, is renowned for its red sand. This makes it a popular choice for Hollywood movies as a stand-in for the Red Planet, Mars. There are sandstone mountains that bear fossils and traces of the time when this whole area was at the bottom of the ocean several millennia ago.
My friends and I stayed in what is dubbed a Martian Dome. It looks similar to the dwelling used by Matt Damon’s astronaut character in The Martian. It has floor-to-ceiling panels to let in natural light so you can see the ever-changing sand dunes that stretch as far as the eyes can see.
Stargazing is a popular activity at the Wadi Rum Desert.
Waking up inside the Martian dome and seeing the glorious sunrise over the red sand is an unforgettable experience that is etched in our core memories.
The luxurious dome even has a wooden deck with an egg-shaped chair where you can sit and admire the looming sand dunes in the distance. The wind forms ripples in the sand, creating a mesmerizing pattern that shifts with every breeze, as if the desert itself is alive and constantly evolving.
In the daytime, we explored this vast desert with red sand, towering rock formations and dramatic cliffs that resemble the surface of Mars.
To travel around the Wadi Rum Desert, we rode on an open-air jeep. They brought us to the spot where Matt Damon shot his pensive moment in the movie The Martian as he contemplated his fate in the alien planet.
