We all awoke on New Years day to a hefty rain that drenched our tents. While all of us, coming from countries that have plenty of rain and were not keen on riding in the pouring wet, the bedouins were all excited and took pictures of a fast developing cascade behind our camp.
Esther in her inner eye already saw the camp flooded with the fast increase in the cascades downpour with a hint of panic in her eyes. Our horses were drenched wet and shivering. Soon a little stream was running in between their feet. We had to get them to a safe and dry place.
Unfortunately many of the caves that are part of the rocky boulders have been taken up by pop up tourist bedouin camps so there was really only one place 2 km away where the horses could be moved out of the rain.
We bundled up into rain gear and started to walk the horses on foot so they could warm up. We arrived at an overhang that was big enough to provide shelter and dry ground for the horses to dry off and wait our the worst.
We then saw a unique and very rare sight in the desert: once the sky started to clear a bit, we saw a beautiful full rainbow from one end of the Wadi we sheltered the horses to the other. A full 180 degree circle was glistening in the drizzle. It was a spectacular sight and we felt privileged to have witnessed it.
The sky cleared even more and lit up in an incredible turquoise blue without the haziness that we usually saw with sand flying in the air. And – something we haven’t seen so far in our life: a rainbow in the desert.
By late morning the horses were dry and we could start a shortened ride that day.
What we did not know is that several riders did not book the entire tour but had to leave one or two days early, which in retrospect was nice as we could ride in a smaller group and leave 3 of the difficult or injured horses behind.
So we set out late morning 3 riders less than the days before and had the most beautiful ride of the trip. The air was a clear blue, no sand flying and from many rocks there were cascades streaming down from the recent rain. Our Bedouins were telling us that they had not seen such cascades for 4 years and took pictures to post on social media as this was such a rare occurrence. We hadn’t known that rain could turn into such pleasure.
