Wadi Rum Nightsoul Camp

Bedouin means desert dweller. For three thousand years, the families of this valley have moved with the rain, the seasons and the herds. Today most have houses in the village of Rum, but the tents are still pitched in the desert, the fires still burn at dusk, and the rules of hospitality are unchanged.

When you arrive at a Bedouin camp, the first thing offered is tea. Then coffee. Then food. You are a guest before you are anything else — name, nationality and reason for your visit can wait three days. This is not theatre. It is what kept travellers alive when the next water was a day's ride away.

Wadi Rum is one of the darkest skies on Earth. There are no cities for sixty kilometres in any direction. Light pollution is, effectively, zero. Half an hour after sunset, the first major constellations appear. An hour after, the Milky Way arches overhead like a river of light.

We host stargazing every night at the camp — mattresses on carpets, blankets, tea by the fire, a Bedouin guide who knows every constellation by its older Arabic name. Children stay up later than they should. Adults find themselves quiet in a way they did not expect.