As we sit here in our hotel room with intermittent electricity and no hot water after another full day of dusty hiking around Petra, I turn to our trusty little laptop and take some time to reflect over the last 3 days in Jordan. I have just uploaded 46 photos to the Jordan album which is possibly a record number of photos after only 3 days in a country. It reflects the pace at which we have been moving and the amazing experiences we have had so far.As an aside, since moving to Dubai to work, Brendan and I have experienced a very different style of travel to the traditional backpacking that we became accustomed to. Taking advantage of living and working in the middle east has meant that our trips have become short bursts of intense energy where we attempt to explore an entire country in the space of 6 - 10 days by taking advantage of the semi-regular extended public holidays. We have swapped public transport for hire cars and now move at a much quicker pace (unless we are talking about Jordan where our hire car moves at a maximum speed of 80km/hr...25km/hr when an incline of more than 8% is encountered). This kind of travel means that time becomes more critical than money, as opposed to backpacking where walking 2 hours to save $2 becomes worth it. It is a unique way to travel - one that I am not necessarily endorsing, but it is what we have at this time in our lives and we are going to make the most of it while we can.
Back to Jordan and we were excited that the second Eid meant that we could take an 8 day holiday and only use up 2 days of annual leave to do so. We landed in Jordan late in the afternoon and despite our 1 hour delay at take off the representative from the hire car comapny stood patiently at the gate awaiting our arrival. Our Kia, affectionately called Kip, is easily the lamest car of all time - barely big enough for us and our bags, and sounding like there is a chain-smoking stray cat being strangled under the bonnet. Here's hoping that it can survive the next 4 days (this morning's smoke from the engine was not a promising sign!).
After a night spent in Madaba, a Jordanian town known for its amazing mosaics and which we know it for some of the best falafel sandwich of all time, we headed south along the Kings Highway and wound our way through the incredible Wadi Mujib. It is referred to as the Jordanian grand canyon, which is perhaps stretching the truth just a fraction, but it was amazing and we enjoyed getting lost in it for an hour or two. On our journey south we stopped by Karak Castle which was a great place to explore but 1 hour in the castle was followed by 1 hour of traffic trying to escape the 1km road leading down the mountain. I guess travelling during a major religous holiday does have it's definite down sides.
On the slow climb out of Wadi Mujib, Brendan and I had one of those unplanned, unique experiences that we will always remember but never be able to repeat. Stopping at what looked like nothing more than a cliff-side tent serving coffee, we were enthusiastically greeted by the charismatic Mr Sammy, a ex-airforce Jordanian service man who was based for many years in Texas and had the accent to prove it. He ran a coffee 'shop' with a spectacular cliff side front. His enthusiasm made us instictively defensive - and although ultimately our skepticism was proven true, perhaps it is a sign that we are maturing as backpackers that ultimately we don't really care - in this instance the experience proved more valuable than the small amount of money we ended up parting with. What started as a harmless (and incredibly tasty) coffee soon spiralled to tea, earrings, lucky rocks, hugs and family photos...oh boy... We left $30 dollars later but after an experience that was funny, enlightening and one that we would never have had if we did not have the freedom of our own source of transport and I had not made the throw-away comment, "do you feel like a coffee"?
We arrived in Petra very late due to our encounter with Mr Sammy and the one or two mistaken turns we took along the Kings Highway. When locals were waving furiously at us and questioning where we were going, we knew we must have gone off track a little.It is hard to describe Petra without using typical cliches and gushing about how amazing it is...and so on....and so forth. However, there have been quite a few times when I have stood in front of a 'wonder of the world' or a UNESCO heritage site and shamefully thought "oh yeah, it's ok i guess". I can say that Petra was not one of these. Yes, it is touristy and the Indiana Jones gift shops leading up to the entrance do not add to the authenticity of the experience. However, Petra certainly lived up to our expectations and then some. The site itself is HUGE and after two very large days of walking around, I am sure we only saw a fraction of it. One of the best parts about it is that it is like an outdoor interactive museum - you can walk around it, climb it, touch it and realy get lost in the moment. This may not be the case in 20 years from now given the incredible number of tourists that visit the site every day.
We bought a 2 day pass and thanks to the 4am Call to Prayer from the Mosque outside our window we got to Petra nice and early and more importantly, before the bus-upon-bus full of tourists. I have two highlights from Petra. The first was walkig through the Sik (a long narrow gorge that is a natural geological fault produced by tectonic forces and worn smooth by water erosion) and then suddenly coming out into this huge open area and seeing the Treasury before us (made famous in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). The second was the 800 odd step climb up to the Monastary and the amazing views we had out over the Petra valley. Most people who go on a one day ticket don't get the opportunity to make it up to the Monastary, but if you can I would highly recommend it. It is an amazing structure that is carved into the rocky mountain and leads you to ask why...and how the hell did they manage to do that? Those crazy Nabataeans!!Well, this blog has certainly been long enough. After visiting Petra, Brendan and I can now tick off one of the entries on our 'to visit list' (which I would like to point out has well over 100 entries still remaining). We are now off to Wadi Rum to explore the desert, do some rock climbing and then south to Aqaba to go scuba diving in the Red Sea. We will round off our Jordan adventure with a night by the Dead Sea. Stay tuned for more of Kate and Brendan's adventures in Jordan.
//Kate
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