Meet the Locals: Shaker from Wadi Rum
In Jordan’s largest desert valley, Shaker Al Zalabeh visits Stone Age petroglyphs, makes dinner in an underground oven, and stargazes with guests in his Bedouin tent settlement.
Photographs by Tara Rice
The Local
Shaker Al Zalabeh grew up in the Wadi Rum, an ancient desert valley settlement in southwestern Jordan. As one of 14 siblings, he spent his early years living traditionally as part of a nomad tribe in the desert wilderness, just as his Bedouin ancestors have for centuries. “The nomadic life was centered on herding sheep, goat and camels, and chasing water,” Shaker said. “Husbands are allowed to have more than one wife, so we would have very big families.”
Around age seven, Shaker moved to Wadi Rum Village to go to school. The gateway to the rest of the UNESCO-designated protected area, the village is a small, dusty collection of cinderblock houses, a few shops, and a tourist center. Unlike much of the surrounding desert, the village provided access to tourists coming off the main state highway and a reliable source of water for Shaker and his family.
By age 13, Shaker had left school to work in the burgeoning tourism industry. He did the jobs given to the youngest family members, like guiding the tourists’ camels. “The first words I learned in English were ‘Hold tight’ — it’s what I yelled to tourists to try to prevent them from falling off the camels,” he said. Then, as an older teenager, he began driving tourists from Wadi Rum village into the vast desert.
Today, Shaker lives six miles outside the village with his wife and child in a quiet valley surrounded by sandstone cliffs. When he gets a few days off, he and his friends travel to the empty, pristine interior. They pack up a goat or two to slaughter for food and trek to the area’s gorges, where elevation and shade create spots with cooler daytime temperatures (though Wadi Rum nights and winters are fairly cool, with temperatures as low as 50 degrees Fahrenheit). They spend their time exploring, rock-scrambling, and slowing down. “We play cards, make tea the old-fashioned way, make campfires, and sleep outside,” he said. “Life has changed a lot in Wadi Rum now that there are cars and trucks. That’s why we go into the desert — to feel the old way of life again that’s away from the city and cellphones.”
Ten years ago, Shaker said, there were about 50 tour guides in Wadi Rum. Today, the tourist industry has grown and there are more than 200 employed guides in the area, many of whom would have lived nomadically before, but have largely traded that life for steady work and more reliable necessities, including delivered water. But even with more people, Shaker said, Wadi Rum has maintained its austere desert beauty and a strong tradition of welcoming outsiders.
“Our culture is built on a foundation of hospitality for all visitors because we live in such an inhospitable climate,” he said. “In the past, it was even harder to travel long distances through the desert because people had their livestock and families with them, crossing large areas with no water. So people in our culture place value on giving water, comfort, and shelter to those passing through the desert.”
His Neighborhood:
Shaker hosts travelers in the remote, protected area of Wadi Rum — a national park and UNESCO Heritage site where only members of his tribe are allowed to reside. His camp sits on the border between two areas of open desert, accessible only by a short ride in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
To one side of Shaker’s encampment is the “red desert,” defined by the ochre-colored iron oxide in the sand. This area is closer to the park entrance and is more visited by tourists. To the other side is the “white desert,” whose yellow sand extends all the way to the border with Saudi Arabia. Because Wadi Rum Protected Area is a vast 300 square miles and surrounded by cliffs and valleys, it feels isolated and quiet, even though there are dozens of camps within a six- or seven-mile radius.
Guests usually spend their days zigzagging across the desert in open-air offroad vehicles. They can visit large rock formations, sites that are said to be associated with T.E. Lawrence (better known as Lawrence of Arabia), and temples built by the Nabateans, an ancient Arab people who lived in the region thousands of years ago. But Wadi Rum has an even longer history, as evidenced by the 25,000 rock carvings and thousands of inscriptions at more than 150 archaeological sites, some of which date back to the Neolithic era. The petroglyphs, carved on cliff faces, boulders, and stones, give insight into ancient ways of life. They depict how the desert’s earlier inhabitants sustained life by raising animals, farming, and trading.
His Home
Every night, Shaker and his guests gather in a Bedouin tent around the subterranean barbecue called a zarb. “We still make this food the traditional way by putting lamb, chicken, or goat over coals in a hole in the ground and then covering the top with sand. The meat takes about two to three hours to be cooked and flavored by the smoke.” They drink tea made with thyme, sage, cardamom, and cinnamon until the meat and vegetables are ready to eat, then talk until the stars come out.
Bedouin tents are traditionally made from brightly colored camelhair textiles that can take years for the women of the family to weave. They are a precious and practical necessity, providing whole families safety and shelter in a single structure. Modern tourism has changed that tradition a little. The tents that shelter visitors are manufactured elsewhere, and they’re made to hold two to five people. The 10-by-10-feet guest tents have simple beds, solar-powered lights, and rich red hues that echo the colors of the surrounding desert.
“Everyone from everywhere comes here,” Shaker said. “I travel when I am sitting here in the desert. If I want to go to America, the Americans come here to me. If I want to go to France, the French come to me here, and the same for everyone else from around the world.”
Shaker’s Wadi Rum Picks:
Eat Zarb: “Zarb is a dish created by our forefathers. In our culture, mornings and nights are busy, but there’s free time in the middle of the day, which is when Bedouins would begin dinner preparations, taking coals and placing them in a hole in the sand to cook on, then covering them with sand. By dinner time, when the herders were focused on arranging their camp and securing livestock, the dish was ready to be eaten — often under the stars.”
Stargaze: “Unless you have been in a high-altitude desert like Wadi Rum or the Atacama Desert in Chile, you cannot understand how many stars and comets and satellites there are in the sky. Stargazing is one of the most popular things to do at night.”
Khazali Canyon: “This is one of the best locations in the protected area. Apart from being a beautifully formed narrow gorge surrounded by steep sandstone cliffs, there are Roman-carved water basins to trap rain and petroglyphs drawn into the rock. The petroglyphs span thousands of years and represent the great civilizations of Wadi Rum, including Neolithic, Thamudin, Nabatean, and Arabic.”
Burdah Rock Bridge: “For visitors who enjoy difficult treks (or, more accurately, scrambling), this half-day climb and descent to Wadi Rum’s highest rock arch gives a good workout and is filled with stunning views.”
White Desert: “This desert reaches Umm Ad Dami, the highest point in Jordan on the Saudi border. The views there are on a grander scale than elsewhere in the more-visited parts of Wadi Rum, with wider valleys as you venture farther south.”
Camels: “Through the stories of Lawrence of Arabia, riding camels is an experience that many of our visitors want to have in Wadi Rum. During early spring when the camels are giving birth, we have camel milk with our tea. The milk is very creamy and unlike other milk, and we believe that it is highly nutritious and gives you a lot of energy and strength.”
About the author: Breena Kerr is a Maui-based freelance writer and journalist whose work appears in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The Washington Post, CNN, and BBC, among others.
About the photographer: Tara Rice is a Brooklyn-based photographer focusing on projects related to education, gender equality, community service, and environmental conservation.
