My Day as Indiana Jones

The first day of my Jordan trip should've been a sign as to how the rest of the adventure would go: absolutely not according to plan. We took the 1:30 AM bus from Beer Sheva down to Eilat, arriving at around 5AM. Of course, the 5 of us were split on 2 different buses and didn't all get off at the same stop, meaning Kristof and I had to take a little 5AM hike to get to the rest of the crew so we could cross the border all together. Getting across the border was an adventure in and of itself, as one of the placed Kristof and I had planned to go was essentially off limits unless you had a guide, which we were lacking. But for some reason, I was the only one pulled aside by the tourism police (curse you Israeli passport) and after not believing me when I said I would change my plans and not go to Wadi Chessa (seriously, why would I lie to the Jordanian police? that would be such a bad move!) they made a copy of my passport and wrote down my travel plans for their files.

FINALLY we made it across the border and into Aqaba, where we bought the cheapest falafel I will ever get (less than 1 Dinar, which converts to about $1), and boarded a bus to Petra. As we met other Israelis crossing the border and on the bus to Petra, they all said that because it was International Tourism Day, entrance into Petra was going to be free, woohoo! But why should things be so easy? After we arrived in Petra and dropped our things off at the hostel, we got to the entrance to the actual Petra site and discovered that it was only free for Jordanian residents. Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't make sense that tourists don't get in free on International Tourism day. Regardless we paid the entrance fee and started our trek into Petra. It was hilarious to see how much they attempted to exploit Indiana Jones at the various shops leading towards the main canyon.

I'll spare you all the specific details of Petra and just hit the highlights. At the end of the Siq (canyon in Arabic) we got to the Treasury which is arguably the most famous part of Petra, immortalized by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as it is where Indy finds the Holy Grail at the end of the movie. Of course I have seen many pictures of the Treasury before but nothing could compare to actually seeing it in person. I can't even imagine how it was made as the stones are smoothed to perfection and meters above the ground. It was absolutely incredible but it was nothing compared to everything else that we saw.

From the Treasury we went through the next canyon and up what seemed like hundreds of steps to attempt to reach the High Place of Sacrifice up on top of the mountain. On our way up, we met these wonderful Bedouin women that offered us tea, practically forced us to sit and rest while we drank our tea and just chatted. It was a lovely conversation, and a very interesting insight into the lifestyle of Bedouin women. Two of them were only 16, and worked instead of continuing with school. However one of these 16 year olds knew the basics of 7 or 8 languages because of all the tourists she talks to each day on the mountain. She seemed like she would do so well in school, afterwards the crew and I were saying we wished we could send her to a real school in the states and not the Bedouin schools that she was probably attending in Jordan.

From the High Place of Sacrifice we could see everything, the views were absolutely incredible. It if weren't for the heat, we might have stayed up there all day. But alas Petra was closing in a few hours and we still wanted to get down the mountain and see what else there was to see. On our way down the back side of the mountain everything was just indescribable. There were absolutely no people around so we could do all the exploring we wanted through every single ruin we passed. The rocks were brilliant colors, and looked amazing as the sunlight hit them just right. We got down the mountain finally, wandered through one final temple, and hiked our way out through the Siq and returned to the hostel. Overall, a pretty fantastic day, despite the rough start...