One of the most recurring characters on a trip to Jordan is undoubtedly Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia.

Born in Wales in 1888, since his college days he undertook several trips to the Middle East, visiting Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. In 1914 he was enlisted in the cartographic service of the British army in Egypt, before moving on to military and political intelligence.

His main task was to deal with relations with the Arabs as an officer of the British secret services but in 1916 after coming into close contact with the Arab prince Faisal as a liaison officer, he began to operate with the task of fomenting the Arab Revolt. against the Turkish occupiers, allied with the Germans.

The first important victory, Lawrence achieved on 6 July 1917 with the conquest of the port of Aqaba, on the Red Sea. His base of operations from which he departed with the expedition was the Wadi Rum desert.

In December 1917, already known for all as “Lawrence of Arabia” and in command of the Arab contingent, he participated in the triumphal entry of the Anglo-Arab forces into Jerusalem and subsequently in the conquest of Damascus in October 1918 together with General Allenby, head of the British forces in the Middle East.

This was his last important operation, in fact after the war Lawrence experienced a period of unrest. In fact, in addition to having fought with great pride and having won the trust of the Arabs, at the same time he followed the orders of the British command somewhat ambiguously.

He then had strong feelings of guilt when at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, the Middle East and the Arab peoples were put at the services of the British and French.

He was also a very proud and ambitious character and with the desire to spread his myth, in 1919 Lawrence had begun to write his war memories, which were published in 1926 under the title “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom”.

He died in 1935 from a serious and still mysterious motorcycle accident.

Rum Farm is a farm located in the Wadi Rum valley in Jordan, near the border with Saudi Arabia. It was founded in 1986 and covers approximately 2000 hectares of land in the middle of the desert.

More specifically, this valley is called the “Valley of the Moon” and is a very arid area, with very little annual rainfall and sparse vegetation.

Red sand areas alternate with granite and sandstone mountains, with gorges, caves, natural arches … everything would be said except that it is a fertile land where you can produce and cultivate something. Yet the desert regions of Israel and Jordan have been the subject of numerous agricultural projects for years, so with the involvement of some local Bedouins, activities have begun here that are starting to be successful.

In fact, it has been discovered that under the Wadi Rum desert there is a large aquifer and which guarantees a large part of the water supply for the whole nation. The water is then taken from the underground aquifer, 30-400 meters deep and irrigates 78 hectares of circular fields, a technique that works very well.

Rum Farm is today a farm specialized in the cultivation of products such as vegetables, cereals and forage, aubergines, cabbage, figs and pomegranates, potatoes, squash, tomatoes. The crops are grown using special irrigation techniques and a method that is said to have been in use since ancient times by the Egyptians and the Nabataeans.