Traveling on Trust
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re in Christchurch, New Zealand. After driving around the South Island for ten days, we’re taking a break in the city before we head to the North Island for some more exploring.
Traveling on Trust
Wadi Rum is a desert in Jordan. It’s nowhere near as vast as the Sahara, but when you’re in the middle of it, out of sight of any human habitation, it feels like the end of the earth.
We went there early in our traveling days. We thought we’d hang out with the indigenous Bedouin nomads, and make jokes about how meta our nomad life is—haha, aren’t we amusing?
That wasn’t quite how it went.
We had booked several nights in a ‘bubble’ tent—a clear plastic dome-shaped tent that was way fancier than it sounds. We were excited about star-gazing in the darkness of the desert skies. The confirmation email said transfer to the camp and a selection of activities were included in the room rate, and instructed us to park at a visitor center, where we’d be met by a company representative.
When we got to the parking lot, there were a bunch of guys hanging out with banged-up, dusty old pick-up trucks. They were wearing t-shirts and jeans. They all came over to talk to us—we had no idea why, or what was really going on (plus they had strong accents, and spoke Arabic amongst themselves)—then one of them spread out a brochure with options for tours we could take in the desert. Like I mentioned above, this was in the early days of our nomading, before we had learned to let go of some of our American defensiveness (read: paranoia that the whole world is out to get us).
We were certain he was trying to scam us into buying tours from him, instead of doing the activities that were included in our stay at the camp. We brushed him off. He persisted, waving around his brochure and trying to talk to us about how long we were staying and what we wanted to see. We got increasingly annoyed.
Eventually he gave up the sales pitch and said he’d just take us to our hotel. It seemed like a bad idea—getting into a truck with this random con man—but we’d been waiting a long time by now, so we just resigned ourselves to being robbed or abandoned or beheaded in the desert, and got into the truck.
As we sped away from the parking lot and our little rental car and all signs of civilization, the cell signal began to wane, and I eked out one last text to the kids, letting them know where to find our bodies if we disappeared, before the signal dropped off entirely. We were now completely dependent on the kindness of this complete stranger.
Why is your husband so angry?
I didn’t know what to say. Because we don’t know you? Because we don’t trust you? Because we’re afraid of you? Because you speak a language we’ve been taught to fear? Because the unknown is a scary place to be? I mumbled something about being tired and just wanting to get to the camp.
We were duly delivered—safe and sound, of course—to our camp. We were welcomed by the manager and ushered into the main tent. We got checked in and had some tea; our luggage was delivered to our bubble. Then we decided which tours and activities we wanted to do, starting with a sunset drive that afternoon.
And who do you think was ready and waiting to take us on that sunset drive? The same guy. Our parking lot con man was, it turned out, our guide. Not only was he totally legit, he was ours. We were stuck with him for the next three days. For everything we’d been looking forward to doing in the desert, he would accompany us. This man we had brushed off, ignored, snapped at, and offended.
It took quite a few hours to reset the relationship, but eventually we did. He was indeed a Bedouin, and I’ve since met enough Bedouins to know that they are some of the kindest, most generous, reliable, and loyal people on the planet. They would—literally—die to protect the people they feel responsible for. At some point later that weekend we were talking about camels, and he got a little teary-eyed. My camel makes me soft in the heart, he said, laying a hand on his chest.
Behind the pick-up truck and the tour pitch and the translation confusion was a sentimental sweetheart who loved his work, his family, and the desert he was so proud to show off to us.
If there’s one way I hope travel has changed me, it’s to make me more trusting. Because if we hadn’t let down our guard and trusted, we would never have learned that a camel can make a person soft in the heart.
It was a pivotal lesson for us.
Take care,
Lisa
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