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Petra entrance
I know that is imposible to put in a picture the greatness of a place, but we tryed.Our stay in Jordan would be short. To make possible the visit to Israel, we had to go and come back during the 30 days our Jordanian visa was valid. Two weeks for each country was all we had.
Crossing the border we saw for the first time how religion could change things supposedly unchangeable. If you handle your passport the immigration officer is supposed to check if this passport is yours or not, right? WRONG! If you are a woman in a strict Muslim society you cannot show your face! The immigration officers has no right to see it and to compare with the picture provided in the passport. Woman pass through immigration completely covered. Just handle the passport, get the stamp and leave. Body search? Don't even think about it! All the men have to get out of the bus, receives a body and bags search, while the woman stays inside the bus waiting. Not very secure this procedure.
Short after the immigration we arrived in Amman. Transport in the region is cheap and quite fast. Back in Switzerland when we made our first Jordanian visa we had promised that we would contact a friend of the consul once
Temple
Camel's lying down in the sun in front of the temple. we arrived in Amman. We did just that. He took us around town and after to a shisha (water pipe) place. He was the first person we met trying to convert us to Islam (didn't work... hehehe).
At the hostel in Amman we collected all the informations we could about the border crossing and hopped on a bus to the Israeli border.
Back from Israel we wanted to visit Petra, the big highlight of Jordan.
Hidden at the end of a siq and carved out of a rose colored stone is a set of worship and sacrifice places, monasteries and tombs spread over an area of many kilometers. The furthest monastery stays one hour walking in a small path over the mountains. It was a hard walk but for the scenario was worthed the effort. This was Fernando's birthday present.
If looking at the pictures rings a bell, it's because you have seen the treasure in the movie "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". In Petra we met Izumi and her sister, two Brazilian girls we have been corresponding by e-mail for a few months already.
With our visa to expire we gave up visiting Wadi Rum and the sites
from the journey of Laurence of Arabia. We would go direct to Aqaba and take a ferry to Egypt. Just as we where leaving to Egypt we formed a group in the hostel we where staying and all of us together took the bus. We manage to convince Games (or James) to delay his fight back to USA to join us.
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