Day 10: The hottest day of the year

March 10: We woke up to another beautiful morning. Clear, blue sky... but unusually warm. We had our normal breakfast at 7:00am and hit the trail at 8:00am.

The terrain today was mostly uphill. Not a steep uphill, though, just a steady and relentless climb upward made more difficult with the sandy terrain.

And the heat! It was starting to feel more like a traditional desert with each passing day. My little mini thermometer showed a high of 90 degrees Fahrenheit (about 32 Celsius), although I have to admit it didn't feel that hot to me. I didn't have a lot of confidence in the precision of my little thermometer (which I could only read to the nearest 5 degrees), but it was definitely the hottest temperature it had recorded on the trail so far and it was definitely the hottest day of the trail so far. Definitely in the 80s at the very least.

The scenery continued to surprise and delight us, however. Just beautiful. Maybe not Wadi Rum beautiful, but amazing in its own right.

Fortunately, it was a relatively short day of hiking, however, and we made it to camp relatively early in the afternoon so I lounged around in the shade of my tent and later in the common area to beat the heat. I wrote in my journal, read my Kindle and socialized with the other hikers. Nothing particularly noteworthy, but still fun.

After dinner, I headed into the hills to do my poop which was where the biggest adventure of the day occurred. Not the poop itself, but the batteries in my headlamp died halfway through the process. But I knew that was a possibility and came prepared with extra batteries, but I ended up fumbling one, dropping it in the dirt. And without a working light, I couldn't find it. Argh! I just want to poop! Why is everything so hard?!

I finished up my business in the dark and hoped it all worked out well despite not being able to see much of what I was doing. I could see the lights from camp in the distance and slowly walked back in the dark. Next time, I'd bring two lights with me when I went out in the dark: my headlamp and my black light. They were the only two lights I had.

The evening was warm, which was a nice change from the bitterly cold and nearly-freezing temperatures we had early in the hike, but that was the only perk to the otherwise miserably hot day.

Karolina was brushing her teeth when I shined my black light her on and woah! It looked a little scary! So I had her make her best monster face and took a photo of it. =)

To make sure we hadn't lost anyone, we would sometimes get in a giant circle and do a count of all the hikers. This circle... somehow got a little out of control!

Lama translates the story of this watering hole.