Wednesday 20th January - Petra to Azraq

Brooding skies accompanied us on the 300km drive through the Eastern Desert northwards to Azraq, the former oasis which was once an important crossroad of trade routes from Bagdad to Jerusalem and a stop on the pilgrimage route to Mecca.  There really wasn’t much to see on the drive, just flat, featureless stony black basalt desert stretching off to Saudi Arabi and Iraq, and thousands of tyre carcases littering the roadside (pretty much the only transport using Highway 10 is a steady procession of lorries).

We made Azraq mid afternoon, giving us time to visit our first of the so called Desert Castles, which are a collection of ruined pavilions, caravanserais, hunting lodges and forts dating back to the Umayyards (661-750 AD) and are scattered throughout the area.  The remains of Qasr Al-Azraq is where T.E. Lawrence based himself in the winter of 1917-18 during the Arab Revolt and from where he led the march to Damascus.

Roman in origin, renovated by the Byzantines, expanded by the Umayyads and reconstructed in its current form by the Ayyubids in 1237 AD, the fort was later used by the Ottomans and finally the Arabs.

Now surrounded by a modern village, the fort lacks the dramatic setting we were hoping for, but once inside you can visualise Lawrence and his men sheltering from the elements within the black basalt stone structure.  Lawrence’s room was above the entrance to the fort.

We finally managed to finish off Lawrence of Arabia this evening (we were watching the director’s cut so it’s taken a while); it just made us want to go back to Wadi Rum!