The Beautiful Desolation of Jordan’s Eastern Desert

*Qasr Usaykhim, located about halfway between Azraq and Safawi*

Listen: Wadi Rum is great. Really, it is. Magnificent, actually. The towering rock formations emerging up out of the cascading sands… it’s a top-notch desert, as far as deserts go, and any visitor to Jordan must make the trip. But with its growing popularity and advancements in technology, it no longer has the feeling of pure and absolute isolation, of echoing solitude, that it once had.

Imagine my dismay upon discovering that you could now get mobile phone reception in the midst of the desert.

And look, for most people, that would be a huge advantage: you don’t have to go off the grid. You can still post to Instagram in real time. On a more practical level, you can call for help if you need it.

But I’ve always loved the desert on some primal level precisely because of the total and complete isolation. I enjoy the little rush of adrenaline that comes with that voice in the back of your mind telling you that, if things go awry, you really are on your own.

Back in 2011, my friends and I once took a weekend trip to Wadi Rum so that I could review a ‘luxury’ camp (a far cry from the kinds of luxury camps you’ll find there now) for a magazine. After an admittedly gorgeous dinner, we decided to head out for a stroll into the night. The moon was full and bright enough that we had no need for flashlights (though the campsite was kind enough to offer them). Armed with little more than a bottle of water and a bottle of wine, we set off into the night. We walked for what felt like hours. Every now and then I’d glance back and make sure I could still orient myself toward the direction of the campsite (I’m blessed with a reliably good sense of direction), but in every sense, we were alone. Isolated. Disconnected from the entire world. We could shout into the void at the top of our lungs, and after a long, pregnant pause, the silence would echo our voices back to us. Nothing else could be heard. No one else could hear us.

That sense of being in complete and utter seclusion—of being absolutely off the grid—is getting harder and harder to find in the modern world.

And yes, connection is a beautiful thing. But so is solitude.

That’s what I find so magical about Jordan’s Eastern Desert. You won’t find the landscape dotted with desert camps—it’s just not that kind of desert—and you certainly won’t find luxury accommodation or tour busses full of ajaneb (foreigners). But you will find a kind of awe-inducing quiet that stretches out with the plains of crumbled black basalt, fading out into the endless horizon.

And you’ll find lots of remote, unguarded historical treasures along the way.

I’ve been living in Jordan almost continuously since early 2008 (save for one year when I was finishing up university, and the two years I spent in Morocco), but it wasn’t until 2022 that I finally made it out to the Eastern Desert. Two friends and I set out from Amman in the early evening, on my 35th birthday, arriving in Azraq shortly after sunset.

After a quick dinner that includes an improvised ‘birthday cake’ made of melon slices stacked around a candle (a very sweet, hospitable gesture from our hosts), we immediately head to bed. (This is your 30s—you trade late nights for early mornings. You’ll wish you’d done it sooner.)

We awaken shortly before dawn, pile into my friend’s car (which, I should note, was not a four-wheel-drive vehicle, but absolutely should have been), and head north of Azraq. After about 40 minutes, we turn off the empty highway and make our way toward Qasr Usaykhim.

Our phone reception disappears even before the paved roads do. Eventually, we drive—cautiously and slowly—up an ascending dirt path surrounded on either side by plains of black basalt. The road is treacherous for this small city car, and the whole way up, I can’t stop picturing us busting an axel and having to walk hours toward the highway for help.

Qasr Usaykhim is thought to have been built by the Nabataeans, then inherited by the Romans, and used by successive Arab Kingdoms in the centuries that followed. It’s little wonder that it proved so useful to so many civilizations: situated atop the highest hill in an otherwise flat landscape, the vantage point allows for unrivalled views of the surrounding vista from all sides.

Today, it sits in ruins, unguarded. A few archways remain intact, as do some of the walls, while others lie in crumbled heaps.

The whole time, Shelley’s words are running through my head like mantra: “Nothing beside remains.”

“…Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

There are certainly more impressive and more well-preserved castles in Jordan’s Eastern Desert. Quite a few of them, in fact. But for me, Qasr Usaykhim represents something beautiful and poetic and prophetic about society and humanity. For me, it is Ozymandias. It is a reflection on mortality. It is extraordinary.

After we get our fill of climbing around the castle ruins, we head back to the highway and further north still, to the Blessed Tree (also known as the Prophet Mohammad Tree or Shajarah Al-Baga’awiyyeh). Alone in the desert, this imposing tree stands like some kind of verdant oasis. The ground around it is dry, with deep cracks that form a kind of natural mosaic around the protruding roots. For pilgrims traveling through the area, its thick canopy would have offered a much-needed respite from the unforgiving desert sun.

As the story goes, the Prophet Mohammad once took just such a rest under this tree as a young boy, while traveling with his uncle. There, he met a man who foretold of his prophethood.

Whatever your religious or spiritual inclinations, the tree is an astounding sight to behold. Until recent years, it stood unprotected and unguarded; now, the Jordanian government has fenced it in and constructed a beautiful path leading up to the site.

After this, we head back to our lodgings—just in time for breakfast.

The rest of our day is filled with various stops and sights—most notably the Azraq Wetland Reserve, Qasr Al Amra, and Qasr Al Harraneh.

At the latter, we meet a policeman from Azraq who gives us an informative and impromptu tour of the castle, before sharing stories from his own life: he and his family live in Azraq, but, as a Bedouin, he spends half his time living in a tent alongside his grazing animals. His mother had recently passed away, and he tells us about how he and his siblings plan to sacrifice a camel instead of a sheep for the upcoming Eid Al Adha, because his mother, before her death, had been saying how much she was craving camel meat. He is warm and hospitable, but he is still in mourning, and there’s heartache behind his smile.

This policeman—with his warm, vibrant spirit and his lingering heartbreak—reminds me, somehow, of our morning at Qasr Usaykhim.