Location: 150 km South of Jerash, Aqaba Governorate
Wadi Araba or just Araba is a picturesque valley in desert Wadi Rum, the driest and largest desert in Jordan. In the Book of Genesis (Old Testament) it is mentioned as the area where Jews wandered for almost 40 years. The best way to visit Wadi Araba valley is by renting a jeep. You can spend hours to days exploring valley desert, depending on how you feel about spending the night under the open sky in a nomadic Bedouin camp. It is a unique experience like no other, but keep in mind that desert night in the region is extremely cold. Additionally you can purchase a traditional souvenir, a red had weaved Bedouin scarf, probably the most necessary accessory in the wilderness for protection from sand and wind in Wadi Araba. Local nomadic tribes claim that if you walk through Wadi Araba desert for several hours you can forget the name of your mother due to unimaginable silence and isolation of an alien landscape.
Located south of the Dead Sea to the Gulf of
Aqaba. This is a small and very arid territory occupying the Jordan
Basin. The desert stretches for 166 km in the Wadi al-Arab Valley,
which is part of a large geological fault starting in Asia Minor and
ending in Central Africa.
The relief of the desert is flat. This large valley, sandwiched
between the ridges of the Edomian mountains from the east, and the
Negev highlands from the west, was once covered by the sea, at the
same time its characteristic flattened relief formed, but already in
the early historical era, Wadi el-Arab acquired a familiar look.
Further aridization (drying out) turned Arava into a real desert,
feeding on seasonal runoff from the surrounding hills. The long-term
accumulation of sedimentary material determined the characteristic
surface profile of the valley. The central, deepest part of this
elongated valley is lined with loose fractions (sand, sandy loam,
loess), while the periphery is mainly occupied by coarse-grained
material (gravelly-engraved surfaces). In the central part there are
also “sabhas” - depressions with moist, highly saline substrates.
Wadi al-Araba lies in the zone of distribution of extra-arid
deserts, territories with an extremely arid and hot climate, while
Wadi al-Arab is densely populated by vegetation, which cannot be
said about the adjacent territories of the Negev, Sinai and the
Arabian desert, which are lifeless spaces rocky gammada. Flora of
Arava - as indeed of Israel as a whole - is peculiar in that it is
formed by species originating from different floristic regions. The
most widely represented are the elements of the Sahara-Arabian
floristic region (retama, tamarix, arborea arvensis, Jericho rose),
to a lesser extent Mediterranean (caper, echium) and Iranian-Turan
(saxaul, mordovia). Representatives of the Sudan-African tropical
complex (palm doom, calatropis, umbrella acacias) penetrate the
desert from the south.
The vegetation cover in the Wadi al-Arab desert is uneven. In
different parts of the valley, depending on the nature of the
surface and the degree of moisture, various types of communities are
composed (vegetation of rocky and rocky habitats, loose sands and
salt marshes). Significant areas on the periphery of the valley are
almost devoid of vegetation; here, individual specimens of biyurgun,
phagonia, zillas of prickly and typically desert ephemera: Jericho
rose and opufum succulent are fixed here at great distances from
each other. In areas with a close occurrence of groundwater and in
dry channels, a dense cover of quinoa, combers, acacia, dereza, wild
oats and millet appears. The lumpy sands of the middle part of the
valley are occupied by sparse communities with the participation of
white saxaul and kandym. Arava is characterized by the widespread
occurrence of tree formations that violate the usual concept of the
desert. The constituent species of acacias give Arava the appearance
of the African savannah. The rare stand of Acacia raddiana, A.
tortilis covers flat, gravelly, and sandy surfaces, mainly in the
southern part of the valley. In Arava is the extreme northern point
of distribution of the African doom palm. This unusual palm tree -
the only one among palm trees - with a branching trunk, grows in two
tiny exclaves in the region of Eilat. Finally, the vegetation of
raw, salted depressions called “sabhs” is represented by various
types of hodgepodge, vault, bluish arthrocnemum and blunt saltpeter,
whose red fruits, similar to raisins, are edible and tasty.
In the Wadi al-Arab desert, there is a state border between Israel
and Jordan.