WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 3 2016

Photos from The Martian. Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox
Well not exactly Mars; but we
visited a place that could –
and has – passed for the Red
Planet.
Our destination was Wadi Rum, a nearly
300-square mile patch of stark, very Martian-like
desert in southern Jordan. T.E.
Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of
Arabia, called Wadi Rum “vast, echoing
and God-like.”
And the description fits its long desert valleys
punctuated by spectacular red sandstone
mesas and peaks that change colors
with the passing of the moon and sun. It’s
both amazingly beautiful and a little spooky.
For decades this Valley of the Moon has
lured film makers seeking a stand-in for
Mars for space thrillers like “Red Planet,”
“Mission to Mars” and “The Last
Days of Mars.”
Today movie fans are thrilled by the mega-hit
“The Martian” where Matt Damon
plays a Mark Watney, an American
astronaut and botanist forced to become
an interplanetary MacGyver when he is
stranded on Mars. Damon has earned a
lead actor Academy Award nomination,
but Wadi Rum, where key scenes were
shot, deserves an Oscar for best dramatic
location
“We shot exteriors at Wadi Rum,” explained
director Ridley Scott in an interview
published in Space.com. “To me,
it’s the Eighth Wonder of the World. …
And I didn’t do anything but shoot it at
the right time, from the right positions,
then added a bit of red dust to everything.
So our film world looks pretty accurate
— at least I’m hoping Mars looks
a little like that.”
A few months before we landed in Wadi
Rum we had never heard of the place,
it could have been a crater on Mars for
all we knew. “The Martian” was new in
theaters and promotional pics showed
Damon sitting in the stark, red Mar-
14 Wine Dine & Travel 2016