I've been adore'in Jordan!

I just got back from a wonderfully packed weekend in Jordan with my roommate Samantha and friend Hanna. I rushed home from my class on Thursday to catch our bus, which was leaving in an hour.

In my haste to leave in a hurry, I forgot to pack a couple things. It's not like they were too important...just a couple extra shirts, an extra pair of pants...okay, basically, the only clothes that I had with me were the pair of jeans that I was wearing, and the elbow-length black shirt. But I did remember to pack up some meals, so that I didn't have to "pay any Jordanian Dinar for dinner!" (heheh, that great line is courtesy of Jess)

We caught our bus to Eilat, enjoyed the leisurely ride to the musical accompaniment of the ringing of the Israeli cellphones, and crossed the border. To make a long story short, we found a taxi to take us to Petra, which is about 2 hours away from the border town of Aqaba. The taxi driver tried pushing his friend's hotel on us, and we agreed. I love Arab countries, because you can be so lazy about your travel arrangements. Everyone, be it a hotel worker, taxi driver, shop owner, etc., has a friend that has another business, and they try to push it on you. Sometimes you can get ripped off, and often you have to bargain/argue a lot for what you want, but this time it worked out reasonably well. Our hostel was horrible, and cold, and the hotel owner had the habit of peeing with the door open and all over the toilet seat....but it was cheap!

Samantha, being the wonderful photographer that she is, woke up at 5:30 in the morning to take photos in "the good light". So Hanna and I set out on our own, with 3 hours more sleep, to experience the beauty and the wonder of Petra. For those of you who don't know, Petra, which dates back to 6th century BCE, was home to the nomadic Arab tribe called Nabataeans. They were wonderful architects and engineers, and carved buildings into the mountains. The Romans conquered it around 100 CE, and it traded hands a few times until it was "lost" in the 12th century. In the early 19th century, it was visited by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig bureaucrat, and I can't even imagine how he reacted. Even I, who had seen plenty of photographs, was absolutely astounded by how beautiful and extraordinary it actually is.

I think that for the first hour, Hanna and I barely talked, and more walked around in a daze, amazed by how beautiful everything was. We must have taken a million pictures. (Which you will all have the pleasure of seeing, of course!) One of my favourite parts was walking through the Siq, a super windy, super long and super tall canyon that leads to the ancient city. The first thing you see when you come out of the Siq is al-Khazneh, the Treasurey, made famous by Indiana Jones. It was carved into the rock and stands over 40 metres high. And it was surrounded by mobs of tourists. So we took pictures, and kept on walking.

I don't want to bore you with details, but suffice it to say, basically everything we saw was beautiful. Highlights include the Royal Tombs (I wanna be buried in something like that!) and the different Palaces to the gods and goddesses. We had a lovely picnic lunch (because we were too cheap to buy anything on the grounds, we had leftover pita) on a little mountain area, with a fantastic view.

One of the best parts of the day was when we walked up to Al-Deir, or the Monastery. It's the second most recognizable site in Petra, after the Treasury, but it was perched on top of a mountain, and to get to it, you had to hike up 800 stairs. Since it takes about 1 hour, and is a fairly difficult climb, a lot of people rent donkeys to carry them up. But the path is super windy, and after my scary experiences with the camels in Egypt, I wasn't in a hurry to mount anything else. (Sophie, get your mind out off the gutter!)

So we hiked up. Well, Hanna, being the super-fit, soccer-playing, varsity swimmer, surfer and scuba diver that she is, hiked up. I somehow stumbled my way up to the top, having a couple near death experiences along the way. In fact, the whole time, I had flies swarming around. They must have sensed the stench of impending death....But somehow, miraculously, I got to the top, and it was worth it. We met some awesome local Bedouins who were playing flutes and a cool string instrument. One of them asked Hanna if she played guitar, because she looks like the type. (Meaning, of course, that she looks cool. If they wanted someone who knew an obscene amount of Star Trek trivia, I'm sure they would have picked me!) So we all went into the empty cavern of the Monastery and had a "jam session", because the acoustics were good there. More Bedouins joined us, and we had a blast! The highlight, in my opinion, was when one of the guys took the guitar and made up a song about me! (Hanna got some of it on video, and hopefully I'll find out how to post it). I wasn't always sure what he was saying, because he had a strong accent, and I think one of the stanzas went:

"Oh, Canadian girl,
I want to take you there,
And I won't care if your back has hair!"

Sweet, nonetheless. The climb basically sapped whatever energy we had left, so Hanna and I slowly made our way back to our shaddy hostel. We continued watching Indiana Jones, and then went to bed early so that we'd be able to wake up at 6:30, for our next action packed day! And so the saga of our awesome frolic through Jordan is put on hold...but stay tuned for the next update.