The jeep arrives like a deliberate animal, kicking up a fine red spray that settles across your shoes. A Bedouin guide—coffee in one hand, a radio clipped to his jacket—opens the door and the desert widens. Towering slabs of sandstone and black basalt rise from the sand, their faces scored by wind and centuries of time; camels chew quietly nearby as the team lights a small fire for tea. Over the next seven to eight hours you move through the valley the map calls Wadi Rum, where each stopping point feels like a different planet carved in stone.