Blogs from Petra, South, Jordan, Middle East - page 27

Petra…a place where you instantly feel like a kid again. It was what you always dreamed about, being an explorer and finding a lost ancient city (I’m sure Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade doesn’t help this either!). That is exactly what Petra is, a lost ancient city carved out of rock. There is not much historical information on Petra. Only that it was created by the Nabateans around the 7th century BC. What happened to their large civilization is also unknown. They know there was a big earthquake around 500 AD that may have destroyed the civilization. We started our morning early (7am) and made our way down the As-Siq. This is the 1km “corridor” that leads to the famous treasury in Petra. It is a huge gorge that has been carved out with water ... read more

Minutes before we were about to board our ferry from Nuweiba (Egypt) to the Jordanian port of Aqaba, we received a frantic text message from my parents telling us of a ferry sinking in the Red Sea and hoping we were OK. We were fortunately heading across the Red Sea in the opposite direction and in a much more modern and safe catamaran ferry (like the ones plying the Marlborough Sounds) . We crossed quickly, comfortably and without incident; taking only 1 hour as opposed to the estimated 5 - 36! hours for the slow ferry. Should anyone head out this way we would recommend avoiding the slow ferry as it is only USD11 cheaper than the fast ferry (USD50) and it is rumoured to be nasty. Immigration at the Jordanian border was a lolly sramble ... read more