petra

So I’m way behind with my blog atm. Apologies for that. So two major things that I have done since last writing were 1) Petra and 2) The Dead Sea...so

Petra

Was the most incredible thing in my life. We spent two days at Petra. The first we just wandered around looking at the major things like the Treasury and the tombs around the place. It takes about 1/2 and hour to walk down the Siq and we got swamped by little Bedouin kids and their underfed donkeys, all competing with each other for our butts on their donkeys. We didn’t spend a huge amount of time in Petra the first day, and that night we had a hamam (Turkish bath) where we got steamed, exfoliated and massaged and showered for $30 aussie dollars.

The next morning we arose at 6am to head off to Petra by 7am. This is the best time to do Petra, because none of the Bedouin kids with their donkeys are up yet, and either are all the tourists, so we had the whole place to ourselves, bar a couple of camels starting work for the day. We rode horses to the entrance for ‘tawlib price’-student price... Being a student is awesome... Normally entry into Petra costs 25JD $50 AU and coz we are UoJ students we got in both days for 1JD!!!!!!! ... Newho

So we started the hike up to the Monastery which is in the mountains outside of the main Petra area... You can be lazy and get donkeys up to the top, but it;s so much more satisfying to walk up. It wasn’t too hard, managed to get to the top in an hour and a half. Views were amazing.

And then we saw it...

A white dome in a mountain about 10km away from us and about another 1km in height compared to where we were... Ok maybe not that high.... But it was pretty high.

Aaron’s tomb! (btw Aaron was Moses bro)

Elle and had a new challenge! We were gonna get there and back to the bus by 3pm. So we teamed up with ex-army super man Stewart, and David and Iain and made our way for Aaron’s tomb. All the locals we met along the way thought we were deranged and crazy that we were walking all the way there. One Bedouin man offered us a lift to the top in his car... For 10JD each!!! We kept walking.

We hadn’t had a break at all since starting our walk up to the monastery, so I was seriously needing a rest... But ex-army crazy man didn’t need breaks... So Iain and I had to stop at one stage coz we were so exhausted. And again...and again... We must have stopped about 8 times. I’ve never done anything so physically challenging in my life before... Not even in cadets. I’m so proud of Elle... Her pride fuelled her efforts to keep up with Stewart. She wasn’t gonna let being a girl slow her down.

After about 2.5 hours after leaving the Monastery Iain and I finally made it to the top. My legs cramped with every single step for the last 1km I think! But making it to the top was so awesome! I’m so glad I didn’t give up. Then came the walk back down... Which took another 2.5 hours. It shouldn’t have taken us that long but my knee was slowing me down. I really don’t know how we made it back walking! And we were running late. The bus was leaving at 3pm and at 3pm we were just entering the main section of Petra...it was still another 40 minute walk to the town! So Iain and I ran towards a kid with a donkey who looked awfully surprised that we were actually wanting a ride! I fell off of the donkey getting on coz my legs seized up with cramps! Haha... And then we galloped. Yes I didn’t think it was possible to gallop on a donkey...but it is... And it’s painful! So we belted it up to the Treasury and then paid off another boy to take us up the Siq...donkeys aren’t actually allowed up there, which we didn’t know...so we got pulled over by tourist police on their scary massive horses... So then we had to run full pelt out the Siq to the horses which would take us to the main entrance. And we paid extra for the horses to gallop the whole way! It was like my own Indiana Jones adventure! And we finally made it to the bus... At 3:30pm! But turns out that Hakeem changed the leaving time from 3pm to 3:30... So that was good news.

But man we must have stank on the way home. We walked non-stop for 7.5 hours and my jeans were soaked. My face had a thick layer of dirt on it. My butt hurt from galloping on horses and donkeys. My legs didn’t function... But it was so totally worth every minute of it. I’ve never had such an experience in my life before. If I got to go again I would definitely not do Aaron’s tomb and the monastery in the same day...

So that is my tale of Petra. If anyone ever has the opportunity to be in this part of the world one day...DO NOT MISS THIS... It’s so good.

Peace

Carly