15. Petra and a mountain desert

After having spend a night in Karak and having visited the not so impressive castle (once you have stepped where Lion Heart once roamed, there really is no castle that can surpass that) we arrive in Wadi Musa. This town will probably not ring a bell for most of you but when I say Petra there might be a couple of ooooo’s and aaaaa’s going on. Yes, yes, Kosta and I have arrived at the highlight of Jordan.

The call of nature

And indeed, the sandstone city of Petra is fantastic, beautiful and definitely a must seen on any itinerary across Jordan. You enter via ‘the Siq’, a rock landmass that has been separated by tectonic forces. Compare it to a long hallway in a canyon . Once you have walked the 1.2 kilometres you arrive at the most famous site, the Treasury.

But all the sites are not as easy to get to. We, my friends, have not only suffered from the heat, but also from two climbs on rock-cut staircases to reach the Monastery and afterwards to reach the High Place of Sacrifice. Never in my life have I felt so knackered (I probably have but one tends to forget the less pleasant parts of a trip LOL). Loads of people go to the Monastery by donkey or horse, but not us, we are the hard ones. And you think climbing is the hardest part, but as we all know, going down is the part that makes us feel we’re getting old as the knees are feeling every single step you take. And although the thought of a donkey, camel of horse to bring you to the exit is very tempting proud stands in the way of that luxury. I tell ya’, by the time we are out of Petra I can only think of The Cruiser and the matress that awaits me. Thank goodness we got a ride from a guy looking for his hotel. Praise whoever I need to praise ‘cos his hotel is near ours and so we don’t have to walk another 30 minutes uphill. As a general advice: you might be too proud to sit your painful body down on a donkey, but never ever be to proud to ask for a ride! (or to be honest, never be too proud to sit your ass down on an animal that can release you from suffering any longer LOL).

Just to have an idea how big it is, enlarge the picture and you might notice Kosta LOL

Always put on sun cream! LOL

Our real last stop in Jordan is Wadi Rum, a mountain desert as they call it. We don’t sleep in the ‘free access area’, the meaning of ‘free’ being a bit stretched here, no, Kosta and I look for a place to sleep in the ‘wilderness area’, aka the real free area. And we might not see the rock formations all tourist pay for, or the Seven Pillars of Wisdom (oh wait, we did spotted those from the visitor centre) or this and that sunset/sunrise point, but we have all the mountain desert experience we want to have. The 4x4 brings us to a nice spot with no other tourist (we left our first spot where the dead camel was decomposing), only a goat herder and his animals to be seen from 500 meters away, a nice sunset to end the day and the most quite night you can imagine. Not a sound to be heard. You would almost forget that those places still exist on this busy earth.