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Published: October 10th 2011
Petra, Jordan
Camels and the TreasuryAhlan wa Sahlan ya Shabab!
I was fortunate enough to have a 3 day weekend this past week because of Egypt's Independence Day falling on Thursday, so my roommate and I decided to head to The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan! I was very excited about this trip because this would be my second time in Jordan, the first Middle Eastern country I had ever visited.
After a flight delay of 5 hours (wonderful Cairo airport strike which apparently happens very frequently) we took an hour and ten minute flight to Amman and landed at 2 AM instead of 930 PM. After meeting our driver, we were off to our hostel in downtown Amman. Our driver was extremely nice and spoke Arabic with me during the entire 40 minute ride. It made me remember the absolute overwhelming hospitality the Jordanians bestow on travelers to their country. Besides, the Arabic in Jordan is much easier for me to understand than the Egyptian dialect.
Upon arriving at our hostel at 3 AM we quickly tried to fall asleep in order to be ready for our 630 AM bus ride to PETRA!! Even though I had visited Petra once
already, I was still so excited to go again. It's a world wonder and absolutely magnificent. We arrived in Petra at around 10 AM and we were off into our descent of the Siq towards the Treasury. If you haven't seen Indiana Jones or Transformers or don't know what the Treasury is, then where have you been?! The Treasury is awe inspiring and a marvel to behold, especially as the sunlight hits it differently through different times of the day. After taking obligatory pictures, we headed off to the tombs, and the great temple excavation done by Brown University.
We decided next to climb the steps up to the Monastery, a 45 minute walk, but the heat was almost unbearable, even for October. Anyway, it was better than climbing up to the High Place of Sacrifice last August. Anyway after we made it (Finally!) and took some pictures, the trip down was so much easier! Afterwards we bought a camel ride back to the Treasury, which was so much fun and our camel driver was hilarious. We got some pretty good pictures with our camels, and then we headed out to do some shopping outside for the usual
Petra, Jordan
The Monastery sand bottles and kuffiyahs (traditional Jordanian red and white checked scarf). Before we knew it, it was time to head back home to Amman. Exhausted after a long day, we quickly hit our pillows and fell asleep waiting to see what the next day would bring.
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