Wadi Rum and Mars

 

Half a year ago I had the opportunity to visit Jordan and of course Wadi Rum, where some movies have been shot [1]. This part of the desert is also known as the Valley of the Moon, but there are some other places also called Valley of the Moon on Terra. The barren landscape is covered in red sand, in which islands of granite cliffs are swimming. If you look at pictures from Mars, Wadi Rum comes very close.

I like the movie „The Martian“ (2015) starring Matt Damon as Mark Watney, who is left behind on Mars after an emergency mission abort because of a storm. He has to survive on Mars. As a botanist he is growing potatoes. This would work in Wadi Rum – if you have the water – , but not on Mars, because the sand there is composed of toxic minerals [2].  Nowadays there are tentlike structures resembling a base on Mars, that visitors may sense „isolation and the enormity of the landscape both in Wadi Rum and on Mars.”

I've been interested in Mars since childhood. The Italian astronomer Schiaparelli [3] published his maps on Mars according to telescopic observations after the great opposition (1877), which allowed a closer look at the surface than at other times. He saw linear structures, which he called „canali“ in Italian [4], which has been mistranslated as canals (constructed) but should actually be translated as channels (naturally created); in addition, areas without elevations like those on the moon were named seas. This initiated speculations that there could be intelligent life on Mars. This is not the case. But look at the science fiction literature that has been published since then, like „Two Planets“ by Kurd Lasswitz, „The War of the Worlds“ by H. G. Wells, or „The Sands of Mars“ by Arthur C. Clarke, just to name three.

There have been other movies like „Dune“ or „Lawrence of Arabia“, which were filmed in Wadi Rum; please look these movies up in the Wikipedia article, which I have already cited.

Let's come back to Wadi Rum, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It covers an area of 720 sqkm, which is a little less than Shenandoah National Park in Virginia (USA) or as large as Bahrain. The highest elevation is Jebel Rum (1,734 m above sea level). You can walk through the wadi, climb the rocks, stay in camps, look a petroglyphs, and much more.

I hiked westwards through the valley. The track went slightly uphill. I then saw a way to get higher on a rock and climbed up there, too. But it wasn't a good spot for watching the sunset and too dangerous for my way back. I then found a nice spot about 1.5 km away. Very nice sunset. I then walked quite quickly between the Martian camps to the road and the railroad tracks. Got a lift back to my camp.

The next morning I got up very early and took a jeep ride to a sunrise spot. I climbed onto a rock with a plateau. It was windy and cold. Very nice view. Marvelous colors. I then drove to Lawrence Cliff where I had tea [5].

Links and Annotations:
[1] https://matadornetwork.com/read/movies-filmed-wadi-rum/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_Rum
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_soil
[3] Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (1835 – 1910) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Schiaparelli
[4] I've found a drawing of such maps in: Die Stadt Gottes. Illustrierte Monatsschrift für das katholische Volk. Jg. XX. Steyl Missionsdruckerei, 1897; p. 253
[5] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2021/11/drinking-coffee-and-tea-in-jordan.html

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