Day 5 Petra

Wednesday February 23rd.

It was fabulous laying outside, under the two heavy duvets and looking up at the star filled sky. It was definitely chilly, but I was quite warm. There was a gentle breeze that was cool on the face and head, so I wore a hat and snuggled down under. Slept great, but woke up at 3:00 because it was so light. The moon had come up. I had to pee, but didn't really want to get out of bed, but I braved and didn't need my head torch to see where I was going, and when I got back the duvest had kept the heat in nicely. Lay there and admired the moon for a half hour while listening to music. What a great night!

Woke up with the sun and the men fixing our basic breakfast, bedouin coffee and sweet tea. After that we were back in our jeeps for the 40 minute drive back to the entrance of Wadi Rum where we had left our minivan.

Our guide and driver drove us for a couple of hours to the town of Wadi Musa (Moses Valley) where we quickly checked into our hotel. Meanwhile our guide went and bought us two day passes to Petra and Jess went and bought us all falafel sandwiches.

We walked to the entrance the Petra archeological site, and after entering we began a slow descent into the site. We entered a narrow old dry river bed that runs downhill between two really high cliffs of the canyon. The Nabataeans, who were the civilization that built this city, had diverted the water away from this river bed so that they could build in its safety and in order to control the floods and their water supply.

Years after their civilization collapsed, a tribe of Bedouin's called the Bdoul, moved in. They lived in the site until UNESCO and the World Heritage Society moved them out and into a nearby village. Now they sell trickets, and try to get the tourists to take donkey or camel rides through the site. They dress like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The path through the canyon is 1.2 kilometres long and ends where they built the “Treasury”, that's the first picture. They carved all there tombs out of the sandstone and dug them into the rock. They worked from the top down. After that we continued into the valley after the canyon and saw a lot more tombs and remains of buildings.

The ruins are entirely of important tombs and temples that are carved into the rock. The ordinary peoples houses have all be destroyed by earthquakes, fires and the thousands of years.

Jess led us on two hikes, both of which were challenging and involved lots of climbing. The first hike took us up over a hill, Jebel El Habis, which means the mountain of Habis. It took us by some beautiful sandstone colours and to a couple of great view points over the valley. The second hike was to another tomb they call the “monastry”. This one involved 800 hundred stairs and led to the beautiful tomb in picture number three. Just past that we came to the “end of the world” lookout where I am standing. That is a beautiful vista over Wadi Araba, (Arabia Valley.

From there we had to walk about six kilometres back down the stairs, through the site, and out the canyon, most of which was uphill. Great hike and great day.

When we got back, we all quickly showered, because no one could shower at the bedouin camp and we got dusty today. Then we regrouped and headed out for dinner. We actually had a drink tonight in the basically dry Muslim city.

Then I spent time blogging and e-mailing.