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?
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.
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.
As the sun sets in this red-hued landscape, vibrant hues of orange paint the horizon, casting long shadows and transforming the landscape into a surreal, otherworldly canvas. It’s a place where time seems to slow down, allowing you to fully absorb the awe-inspiring beauty of nature’s untouched masterpiece.
At night, you have the option to do stargazing at night with the Rum Sky group. Before the activity, they showed us an eye-opening video that showed the mind-blowing scale of the universe.
We then spent the next few hours standing in the cold, peering through telescopes to see planets and stars that are lightyears away.
We learned about the Copernicus Crater on the moon and seeing its sharp contrast between light and shadow gives the impression of a desolate, yet beautiful, alien world.
It was fascinating to see Jupiter with its four Galilean moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto — each with its own unique characteristics.
Declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, Wadi Rum is also known for having petroglyphs and ancient inscriptions that have been preserved for 12,000 years. Carved on a rock face were petroglyphs of prehistoric animals being chased by a hunter carrying a spear.
These petroglyphs serve as a fascinating glimpse into the lives of ancient humans, offering a window into their world and a way to document their experiences. Much like how we capture our daily moments and thoughts through social media today, these early inscriptions were their form of recording events, stories and interactions. The images of hunters and animals, etched into the stone, are their way of leaving a mark on history, allowing future generations to understand their lives and cultures, just as we do now with our digital footprints.
Jordan is a land of enduring mysteries and its otherworldly landscape, with its Martian-like terrain, holds an unspoken beauty that captivates the soul.