Petra

We'll see how this blog goes because we're both extremely tired from hiking around Petra for 2 days now.

We came to Wadi Musa, which is the name of the town at Petra, via the Kings Highway. We ended up sharing a taxi ride with a mother and daughter from England. They had visited Syria first and then came to Jordan. They were great fun to have in the car for the day. The mother loved to carry on conversations about just about anything.

One of the stops we had was at the castle of Karak. This is a castle built on the top of the hill and had great view of all around. A great defensive sight. The history of it was so hard to keep track of because it's switched hands from so many different groups of people over the last bazillion years. Very interesting to look at.

We arrived at Petra around 5 p.m. and were dropped off at our hotel the Cleopetra. Moseleh is the extremely friendly personality of the place. We got a welcome pot of tea, sat, relaxed and eventually got the keys to our room. Now he said we did not really get the nicest room but hey, whatever. It's a very interesting place to say the least, not the worst place we've stay..i.e. no rats. but I'm not sure when the last time the carpet was cleaned...if ever. The bathroom is funny too. You have to sit sideways on the toilet because the wall is right there at the front of the bowl. Another oh well. But the hospitality and free pick up and delivery each day has more then made up for it.

Now Petra is another amazing place. Yesterday we mainly focused on the main path with one side excursion. The place looks like what I imagine parts of Moab, Utah or Idaho look like. Extremely beautiful rock formations and canyons, but then the ancient people carved into the sides of the hill and mountains and created a whole town. There is a treasury building, a shopping area, several homes, tombs and the biggest of all, the monastary. To get to the monastary you must hike a few hours, uphill...I think they said it's 800 stairs to get there. But these are nice neat stairs, they are carved into the rocks and you have to scramble over a few and make sure you carefully place your feet. Back in the day it was considered a place people made a pilgramage to. I am throughly impressed with all the tourists who make it each day. It is work but well worth it. If you do grow tired you can pay to ride a donkey up and back, but it's not cheap and looks really uncomfortable. And the lucky walkers get to avoid donkey poo the whole way up and down.

I really think you should Google Petra to see what it looks like because words don't do it justice. Apparently it was used in the first Indiana Jones movie, so you can see it there. The colors and formations are just amazing. And how they carved into the mountains is another mind boggling feat. There are still a few Bedouins that live in the caves of Petra. They are in better shape than I. I highly recommend coming here. It's there version of Ankor Wat and just as impressive if not more. Instead of pretending you are Laura Croft from Tomb Raider you can be Indiana Jones and run all over the place. If you have the energy!! We love it.

So tomorrow we head to Wadi Rum and will sleep in the desert with a Bedouin guide. Lawrence of Arabia was filmed there. Apparenly we're in the Hollywood of the middle east and we didn't even know it until we got here. You learn something new every day.

So we keep on truckin'!