Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Getting There & Away
The turning for Shaumari is well signposted, 7km from the Azraq T-junction, along the
road to the Saudi border. A small potholed road leads a further 6km to the reserve. The
last kilometre is gravel, but is easily manageable in a 2WD.
UNICORNS OF THE DESERT
The last time the Arabian oryx was seen in the wild in Jordan was in 1920 when hunting drove this magnificent,
straight-horned antelope to local extinction. In 1972, the last Arabian oryx was killed by hunters in Oman, which led
officials to declare the oryx extinct in the wild. However, in a remarkable conservation effort, the nine oryxes left in
captivity (known now as the 'World Oryx Herd') were pooled together and taken to the Arizona Zoo for a captive
breeding programme.
In 1978, four male and four female oryxes bred in Arizona were transported to Jordan in an effort to help re-es-
tablish the country's wild population. Under the auspices of the
Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature
(RSCN)
, the first calf, Dusha, was born at Shaumari Wildlife Reserve the following year. Five years later, there
were 31 oryxes at Shaumari. Since then, some have been released into the wild at Wadi Rum - a not altogether suc-
cessful enterprise. The next step is to introduce oryx in other protected areas throughout the country. This has
prompted the RSCN to overhaul their facilities at Shaumari significantly in the hopes of attracting greater interest
and funding from tourists in their vital conservation project.
The return of the oryx to Jordan was the occasion of great national pride which prompts the question: what is it
about this antelope that provokes such emotion? Perhaps it's the uncanny resemblance of a mature bull, with rapier-
like antlers, to the mythical unicorn. This is not as far-fetched as it seems. The ancient Egyptians used to bind the
antlers of young oryx so they would fuse into one. Seeing a white, summer-coated herd-bull level up to a rival in
profile, it's easy to confuse fact with fiction.
Qasr 'Uweinid
If you can find this little scrap of history in the middle of the Eastern Desert, you deserve
a medal! Once a robust and practical structure, built by the Romans in the 3rd century AD
to protect the source of Wadi as-Sirhan (now in Saudi Arabia), this fort was abandoned
less than 100 years later. All that remains to be seen now are the outline of the fort in
broken walls and a couple of ruined wells and cisterns.
But you don't come to a fort like this to look at the pile of old stones, strewn across the
wadi bottom - even though some of those stones have evocative inscriptions and even
though you may well be one of only a handful of people to have stepped over the
