Breaking out of Egypt
Trip Start
Nov 18, 2010
1
22
26
Trip End
Dec 19, 2010
Where I stayed
Petra, Jordan
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
We woke up early (again) to make sure we had plenty of time to catch the ferry. Though we were all very skeptical we were finally permitted to board the ferry and travel to Jordan. Of course there was still plenty of unnecessary scrutiny by the border patrol. I didn't see anyone else having to provide details on their return to Egypt, but eventually we made it to Jordan! It was truly unbelievable just how difficult that was. When we arrived in Jordan the Jordanian border patrol was happy to accept our passports and let us in. We even ran in to the harbor manager that tried so hard to help us yesterday. He was so apologetic, not that he had anything to apologize for, and he gave us his business card and told us to contact him if we had any trouble in Jordan. When we got off the boat we were greeted by our guide, Abdalla. He was also very apologetic for the trouble we had, although it was not in his control what-so-ever and he told us he had been waiting for us since 7am the day before too. We were all just happy to finally get to Jordan. We were worried that the extra day in Taba was going to cause problems for us but we were assured that we would still be able to see nearly everything we had scheduled for Jordan. In fact we went immediately to visit Petra. Petra is a beautiful and wonderful place, although it is most famous for one specific building, the treasury, we found out there was so much more to see we could have easily spent a few days there. As it turns out we were there for approx five hours and hustled through most of it and still didn't get to see all we wanted to see. Petra is a collection of several buildings and tombs carved out of the sides of the sandstone canyons. Aside from the facades there are amazing natural colors in the canyons and some of the natural formations are incredible. A serious photographer could easily make an entire career out of shooting photos just in Pertra. It really was that beautiful. The facades were created by the indigenous people, the Nabataeans, over two thousand years ago. Some of the native people, the Bedouins, still live there in the caves on the actual site of Petra. It's really neat. Our guide walked us through the canyons and explained many of the different sites and the history of Petra. When he was done we decided to take a donkey ride up the 900 steps to an isolated facade called the Monastery. The donkey ride was an experience all it's own. Right from the start I thought my donkey was a bit suicidal since he headed straight for the edge of the staircase and had me teetering half over the edge. I was not comforted by our "guides" for the stair climb of death. They were a couple of young boys, probably around 10 years old, that seemed to take great pleasure in hitting my donkey on the rump to get him to move faster despite the fact that he was pointed right off a cliff. Once we were close to the top the kids took our donkeys back down, it was only a one way ticket, and we climbed the rest of the way to the Monastery. The Monastery was very impressive and huge. Since it was late in the day there were not many other people there and it was very peaceful. There were also a couple of lookout points that we scrambled up to for a few pictures. We had to hurry on our way out since it was already starting to get dark and there are no lights along the way. It took us a little over an hour just to walk out from the monastery back to the entrance where Abdalla was waiting for us. We were actually a little luck we hadn't come to Petra the day before because on Wednesday nights they do something special called Petra by night and since it was Wednesday we got to sign up. For Petra by night they wait until after dark, line the canyon path with candles down to the treasury and play traditional Bedouin music and tell a little story. It was very romantic and the experience was breathtaking. To wind down our even we stopped in to The Cave Bar for a quick drink on the way back to the hotel. The Cave Bar is a two thousand year old Nabataen cave that has been converted into a bar right outside of Petra. It was just a quick walk from Petra to the Cave Bar and back to our Hotel a couple hundred meters up the street.
-dv
