Wadi Ruma and Petra (Day 2)

Well I left off on the last blog with me going to sleep at Wadi Rum.  The whole day was fantastic up till that point.  First, it was really cold, which was not that bad after I got under my cover but there were other things that hindered my sleep that night. There are wild cats, dogs and other kinds of animals all around the Wadi Rum campsite.  The whole night I heard dogs barking, cats meowing and some mysterious animal screeching/screaming.  Although I do think I managed to get an hour or two of sleep.
       From there though it got much better.  When we woke up at 7:00, the Bedouins had breakfast ready for us.  It was a good breakfast consisting of eggs, pita bread, something weird, jams and honey. After the hearty breakfast we headed to the amazing city of Petra. Petra was established by the Nebataeans, ancient Arabs. It is the site where Arabs believe that Moses struck the rock to get water to come out.  The city is very mysterious and interesting because all the archaeologists and historians can not come into agreement about what the main buildings were used for.  The most famous of all the buildings, the Treasury, is thought to be a treasury building, a palace, a temple and a few other things. What ever it was, it is amazing how that ancient civilization made the massive carving in the rock cliff.  I will not bore you with all the other history that we were enlightened on during the tour of Petra but it was all very interesting while there.
       So I was sitting on the bus driving into the city of Petra out in the middle of the vast desert.  At first, driving through the modern city of Petra, it is a normal Jordanian city.  With houses built on hillsides, stores along the rode, and people walking the street.  Then we got off the bus and headed down a path to the big rocks(mountains).  While walking down that path we were surrounded by Bedouins selling Petra souvenirs.  They are very good salesman.  They were yelling at us to buy stuff the whole walk down.  I walked into one of the stores with a couple friends ( I had my Keffiyeh on my head with the bands but my friends did not). Right when we got into the shop the owner told my friends to sit down and started tying a keffiyeh to their heads without asking them.  He then asked for 7 dinar from both of them.  His sales technique worked.

first rock carvings

    So then we entered the historical Petra. We started the tour by walking down an open pathway.  about 100 meters down I saw the first rock carvings.  They were small but it was neat. Image to the right is a picture of a house with a grave to the right. All graves are 5 steps to the right.

first rock carvings(sorry for it being sideways)

So after that we reached the closed pathway.  That was the scene from Indiana Jones when he was reaching the Holy Grail site.  So we all felt weird standing in that spot. The picture is below. the first one is of us and the entrance guards and the other one is from the Indiana Jones shot.

the path we walked through

entrance gaurds

As we were walking through the path our tour guide was telling us the history of all the sites. Here are a few more picks of the pathway.

pathway

pathway

So after about 30 minutes walking through this rock surrounded pathway, our tour guide told us to look down and walk forward.  As I was walking with my head down, light came into my eyes. The cliffs opened up and the sun was shining down on us.  I looked up at he sun and in the distance saw the famous and magnificent treasury building.  It was larger and cooler than I ever expected. I was in complete awe. Than about 5 Bedouin salesman came up to me trying to sale fake coins.  They would not leave me alone till I left that area. But it was funny, I enjoyed it.

first look of the treasury

roof of the treasury

After spending 10 minutes looking at the Treasury building, we headed off to the restaurant and ate a good buffet lunch.  A group of 5 of us rushed through lunch so we could have enough time to see a lot more of Petra.  We had about 3 hours of free time. So the first thing we did was walk up to the monastery, which we really did not know anything about. So we started walking up and soon realized that it was going to be an exhausting walk.  There are 800 steps to get to the top of the mountain where the monastery is. About half way up we stopped at a good point to look at the view overlooking the area. At that point I bought a bottle of water and poured all over my keffiyeh to keep my head cool.

pic of me half way up with the water soaked keffiyeh

By the way, about every 50 meters there were Bedouins with little souvenir shops on the pathway.  As they asked if i wanted to buy anything I would tell them in Arabic later maybe. Just remember this.

Finally, 800 steps and a half hour later( we walked very fast) we made it to the monastery.  It was just as amazing if not more than the Treasury. When I first saw it, I thought to my self " why is this not famous", then I thought "I guess not many people come up here".  I was very glad I made the walk up. It was astonishing. And unlike the Treasury, we could walk inside the monastery. It was a big open space inside. 

Here are the pics. The most amazing thing about it was how big the door was, fit for a king.

monastery

Me in the monastery doorway

So once again we spent about 30 minutes up there admiring the rock architecture.  Then Jordan and I headed back down the mountain.  On the way down I bought an old dagger made with silver and it has a cool Arabic inscription on the blade with the name of the local Arab tribe. It is a neat dagger with historical meaning. So as I was walking down the pathway vendors were yelling at me "You said you would buy something later". They were holding me to my word, so I ended up buying a couple little things from some of them.  Then it got kind of fun. Part of Bedouin culture is to offer guests tea for free.  So Jordan and I sat down and drank fresh brewed tea over a fire with the small families.  One family we came across was very nice to talk with.  We sat down and talked with them.  As I sat down the wife put a couple tea cups in a small bowl of water and rinsed them off with her fingers.  She served us tea and we talked in Arabic for about 10 minutes till I ran out of things I knew how to say.  Then we spoke in English while drinking the tea for about another half hour.  They kept on pouring me tea.  That was probably my favorite part of the day. They even invited us to come live in a cave with them. Then they started laughing.

The Bedouin woman who served us tea on the cliffside

It was 3:00 then and we had to be back at the bus at 4:00 so we left.  It is an hour and a half walk back to the bus. So Jordan and I walked down the rest of the stairs rather quickly and then came across a guy with a couple camels.  We both payed the guy 10 dinar to ride the camel back to the treasury site and made him promise to take a picture once we got there.  I practice my Arabic with the guy on the quarter-mile ride back. The camel ride through Petra was a once in a lifetime thing so I had to do it and camels are very neat animals with their huge feet and funny faces.

So after getting off the camel I had Jordan take one more picture of me by the treasury and then we headed back down valley pathway.

So after getting off the camel I had Jordan take one more picture of me and the treasury building

From there we quickly walked back to the bus.  At the bus all the other students were gathered around a table with some water, fruit and other snacks on it. I ate about 4 helpings of stuff and drank two bottles of water and felt much better. After that we all boarded the busses and headed home, well back to our Jordanian homes. I took about an hour nap on the way home and then thought about the wonderful two day trip on the rest of the way home. Once I arrived back at the house my host mom had a meal ready for me to eat.  After I ate that I went directly to bed to get back the sleep that I lost.