If you've seen "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" the title of this post should sound familiar. If you haven't; what is wrong with you!?! Harrison Ford and Sean Connery are great and it's a simply awesome action adventure movie. Before I side track myself and turn this into a movie review blog, there is another reason I mention this. The movie was filmed in Petra, Jordan, where I just happen to be. Indiana Jones found and drank from the Holy Grail in Petra, and he beat the Nazi bastards to it!
Getting to Petra suuuucked! I took the bus from Aqaba to Wadi Mousa(which is the town just outside of the ruins), which was maybe the most uncomfortable 3 hours of my life. In Jordan it is extremely taboo for a man and woman who are not married or related to sit next to each other on a bus. This meant that the open seats next to women stayed open and men filled in the seats next to me. So I had two guys almost sitting on top of me with my bags actually on top of me. But once we got to Wadi Mousa I took a taxi to my hotel and I relaxed and got comfortable for a minute. Then I was off the Petra, but at this point it was like 2pm and my taxi driver told me I would not have enough time to see all of Petra. He recommended going to Little Petra, which is another ancient town that dates about 500 years prior to Big Petra.
In Little Petra I got a Bedouin guide to take me around. Now when I say Bedouin I mean it, this guy lives in a tent in the desert and herds goats for a living. He was really cool, and knew a ton about the site, he showed me everything and I really got a sense of what Nabatean life was like. It was amazing. He recommended I come back the following day and go with him in the back way to Big Petra, he assured me it was quicker and no tourists know that way. More and that in a minute.
Following Little Petra, I went to Big Petra for a leisurely walk around and was not worried about seeing everything, as I'd be back the next day. I really started to realize how god damn hot the Jordanian desert is, I was tired as hell when I got out of Petra. Instead of walking around more I went back to my hotel and chilled for an hour or so. I had some dinner, Arabic chicken which is delicious, and then went to bed.
7:30 this morning I was awoken by trucks driving by, but I needed to be up anyway so I wasn't pissed. I returned to Little Petra and met up with my Bedouin guide again for the walk into the backdoor of Big Petra. Wow, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. At first it was just walking through the desert, which was great because it wasn't hot this morning and the landscape is breath taking. But it got much crazier. Eventually we got to mountains...which needed to be climbed. The two guides live their lives in nature and do this sort of thing all the time, but it kicked my ass. I kept wishing I had a Jeep to drive over this shit. It was long, all told once we reached the end of Petra about 5 miles! At points I literally climbing up the side of a damn mountain, and a few times I was trying to figure out what the hell I had done to deserve this.
It was all worth it though, really. I had such a feeling of accomplishment after finishing, or was that just the lactic acid build up in muscles I never knew I had? It was quite the experience, I got to live a Bedouin lifestyle for a few hours. My guide was hilarious too, he made jokes the whole way. My favorite was "Why does woman go to bed?", "Because bed not go to woman!". The guide told me that I was not just a tourist anymore, that I was now someone who lived like a Jordanian. We also went to all the amazing sites of Petra; Nabatean, Roman, and Byzantine. I can't do a good job of describing just how awesome they are so just look at the pictures. Once everything was said and done I was dead, I've never sweat so much in my life, but like I said so worth it.
Tomorrow I leave Jordan and head to Egypt! I have a flight from Amman to Cairo tomorrow and I honestly can't wait. Jordan has been great but its expensive and I can't keep spending money at this rate. Plus I'm excited to see another new country, and be reunited with Marnie again. Funny story, this time last year I was walking around Wenceslas Square in Prague. Is all of this real?
Getting to Petra suuuucked! I took the bus from Aqaba to Wadi Mousa(which is the town just outside of the ruins), which was maybe the most uncomfortable 3 hours of my life. In Jordan it is extremely taboo for a man and woman who are not married or related to sit next to each other on a bus. This meant that the open seats next to women stayed open and men filled in the seats next to me. So I had two guys almost sitting on top of me with my bags actually on top of me. But once we got to Wadi Mousa I took a taxi to my hotel and I relaxed and got comfortable for a minute. Then I was off the Petra, but at this point it was like 2pm and my taxi driver told me I would not have enough time to see all of Petra. He recommended going to Little Petra, which is another ancient town that dates about 500 years prior to Big Petra.
In Little Petra I got a Bedouin guide to take me around. Now when I say Bedouin I mean it, this guy lives in a tent in the desert and herds goats for a living. He was really cool, and knew a ton about the site, he showed me everything and I really got a sense of what Nabatean life was like. It was amazing. He recommended I come back the following day and go with him in the back way to Big Petra, he assured me it was quicker and no tourists know that way. More and that in a minute.
Following Little Petra, I went to Big Petra for a leisurely walk around and was not worried about seeing everything, as I'd be back the next day. I really started to realize how god damn hot the Jordanian desert is, I was tired as hell when I got out of Petra. Instead of walking around more I went back to my hotel and chilled for an hour or so. I had some dinner, Arabic chicken which is delicious, and then went to bed.
7:30 this morning I was awoken by trucks driving by, but I needed to be up anyway so I wasn't pissed. I returned to Little Petra and met up with my Bedouin guide again for the walk into the backdoor of Big Petra. Wow, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. At first it was just walking through the desert, which was great because it wasn't hot this morning and the landscape is breath taking. But it got much crazier. Eventually we got to mountains...which needed to be climbed. The two guides live their lives in nature and do this sort of thing all the time, but it kicked my ass. I kept wishing I had a Jeep to drive over this shit. It was long, all told once we reached the end of Petra about 5 miles! At points I literally climbing up the side of a damn mountain, and a few times I was trying to figure out what the hell I had done to deserve this.
It was all worth it though, really. I had such a feeling of accomplishment after finishing, or was that just the lactic acid build up in muscles I never knew I had? It was quite the experience, I got to live a Bedouin lifestyle for a few hours. My guide was hilarious too, he made jokes the whole way. My favorite was "Why does woman go to bed?", "Because bed not go to woman!". The guide told me that I was not just a tourist anymore, that I was now someone who lived like a Jordanian. We also went to all the amazing sites of Petra; Nabatean, Roman, and Byzantine. I can't do a good job of describing just how awesome they are so just look at the pictures. Once everything was said and done I was dead, I've never sweat so much in my life, but like I said so worth it.
this is awesome. i want to go to petra so badly - will you be putting more photos of jordan on facebook?
ReplyDeleteI'm not even going to attempt to describe just how jealous I am.
ReplyDeleteWOAH! That all seems so cool! And now I ask myself why I am in WIlliamsburg and not with you. Your adventures have seemed very interesting. Have fun in Cairo!
ReplyDeleteYeah I'll be posting a ton of pictures from the trip on Facebook. I just haven't had the time to go through and upload many yet.
ReplyDeleteSarah you should have come! You can still fly to Cairo haha.