There’s nothing to be said about Petra that isn’t already done better someplace else on the web. I’ll leave it at this: there’s a lot more to Petra than what we see in the usual tourist pictures. And it’s all good.
We spent three days in Petra seeing the famous stuff and hiking out in the middle of nowhere to see the less traveled ruins. There’s very little in Petra that you can’t walk on or climb up.
Only twice did we violate signs saying “no climbing”, and one of those was with permission of an ‘official guide’ I had met. Mary gets to tell the story of the more egregious violation.
We succumbed to our touristy inner selves and even went on a candlit stroll to the treasury at night. It takes something like 1500 candles to lite the 2km path to the Treasury and then another 500 light the treasury itself up. It’s corny, but actually really cool.

Our second day in Petra we hiked up the 752 steps to the Monastery which is another huge fascade in the rock. It’s well worth the effort and of the tourists that decide to make the trip almost all take pictures then head back without much pause. But Steve isn’t just any other tourist; he wants his picture at the top next to the urn. He casually walked around the No Climbing sign when others are distracted. I stayed on the bottom to drink my soda and because someone has to take the pictures. A short time later I see him sneak out on the top ledge then hide. Minutes later I see him scamper from behind one ledge to the next like a duck in a duck hunt. He repeats this dance a few times before I release he’s trying to take pictures at the top using the timer on the camera while trying to avoid being caught. Unfortunately one of the locals caught site of him during his last pass and warns me that he should come down before the police finds him and takes him away. There’s nothing I can do so I just nod and return the look of stern agreement. Bad Steve, but good picture.

-Mary

Editor’s Note: I actually was never close enough to read the words on the sign. I cut a path far from the sign and up a slightly more dangerous hill so I could truthfully say “sign, what sign?” It worked out in the end. Mary took all the heat and nobody said a word to me. Heh. Of course, all I get for my efforts is this silly picture of the urn on top.

The only thing better than breaking the rules and getting away with it is when it is facilitated by the rule maker. In Petra there is the remains of a Byzantine church with ancient mosaics dating back to 600 AD, very well preserved and kept behind a simple barrier. We are the only ones there and the guy watching this place asks if we would be interested to walk on the antiquities provided we took our shoes off. The offer caught us by surprise so we had to clarify that we heard him correctly. Seriously, we can walk on these thousand year old works of art by peoples long since gone if we go barefoot? We said this of course while we were taking our sandals off. It’s kind of nerve racking to trod on artifacts because you just don’t know if the next step is going to pull up a tile or crack a motif. Then he brings the wet sponge out and starts rubbing some of them to show the brilliant natural colors under the layers of dust. While he’s doing this I thought I noticed a tile actually roll off and he quickly picked it up into his palm. We tiptoe about feeling the tiles beneath our feet taking pictures and video. Talk about trying to take gentle steps. I really wanted to bust out a cartwheel but thought that might be over the top. In the course of our half hour conversation he made a quick comment about losing his job if anyone saw us doing this but we didn’t push him on the details. Apparently this guy had been working with the excavation team for a decade and knew all kinds of interesting facts about the work being done in Petra. He gave us the sales pitch just as we were about to leave so we bought a jar of sand art and a set of postcards from him. We figured the price for walking on the priceless mosaics was well worth the $2.50.

Oceans are 3% salt, the Dead Sea is 30% plus a bunch of other minerals. With such a high salt content nothing lives in it except highly specialized bacteria. The tourist draw is the incredible buoyancy the salt content affords and the health benefits from the highly enriched water and mud. Being in Jordan we were so close to it that we couldn’t resist the detour. We were tentative to dip in because the water was murky and slimy to the touch. It was the exact temperature of the air which was in the mid-80s. Once in the heavy water kept us effortlessly afloat. Between the warm temp and thick water I wondered if that’s what it was like to being in a womb. Yes, a weird thought. It was just that soothing and relaxing…until we started testing the buoyancy with various attempts at acrobatics. It started out with trying to sit upright then spinning and balancing on our stomaches, all the while keeping our heads out of the water for fear of effects of the salt. And like the old idiom goes, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Steve gets a little too comfortable with his balance and loses it, tumbling backwards into the water with his feet reaching for the sky and his head submerged in the soup. This whole time we were only in two feet of water so I lead him blind onto the beach and douse water over his eyes which are bloodshot. If you’re curious what it feels like to have the Dead Sea in your eyes you’ll have to ask Steve, but the water tastes like dirty salt, what I would imagine licking the bottom of a hiking sandal would be.

-Mary

Click on the ‘Jordan’ link to the right or go back to the website for photo albums for the Dead Sea, Petra, Wadi Rum desert and scuba diving in Aqaba

On the 10th day of Ramadan, my true love gave me heartburn.

We learned a big lesson a couple days ago. We were spoiled with the good life in Turkey. Our arrival in Jordan marked a turning point in our travels. In one 2 hour flight, we went from “vacation” to “trip”. Istanbul is Europe. Jordan is the Middle East. We saw little evidence of Ramazan (as it is called in Turkey) in Istanbul. There was no interruption in services, people were eating, drinking and smoking all day long. We ate McDonalds in public.

Fly to Jordan. For two days we held sympathy Ramadan by fasting until sundown with EVERYONE else. This wasn’t because we’re wonderful and considerate people, but because finding an open restaurant or market in our part of Amman just isn’t that easy.

But today was different. After washing the salt out of my eyes and nose at the Dead Sea, we were lucky enough to find a restaurant catering to tourists. We ate so well that I was going to skip dinner, if you can imagine that. After a few hour drive down the King’s Highway through a few Crusade Castles (time to pick up the history book…) we arrived in Petra where the brothers that run our hotel offered us some of their “break-fast” meal (they all think that twist in meal naming during Ramadan is funny). Well, there is only one thing for us to do when a huge family-size portion plus two deserts are brought out for us. Gorge.

But now I don’t feel so well…

I think we’ve also seen an end to good internet for quite some time. There are rumors of DSL here and there, but we’re living the dial up life for now. I want to scream it’s so slow. I don’t know how you live like this, dad!