Blogs from South, Jordan, Middle East - page 50

What can be said to describe Petra except maybe awesome. First off you enter Petra via a path called the Siq. The Siq is path formed in the rock by an earthquake and eroded to a large size by water. The wall are 150 meters high and in some places along the route it is only a few few meters wide and no sunlight reaches the bottom. Also along the Siq is the remains of an ancient Nabatean water channel that brought water into the city. Your first sight as you exit the Siq is what is known as the treasury. The Treasury is spectacular and is in wonderful condition because it is in a place that is protected from wind and water. After going pass the Treasury you enter the outer Siq which leads you ... read more

(Dustin) Who knew life could be so expensive in Isreal? After sleeping most of the afternoon and all night after being up so many nights in a row with not so good sleep and staying up for Sinai we got managed to make out way down to the beach in Eilat to hang out for a couple hours and swim some. We actually ate pretty good there though because we started going to the grocery stores instead of restaurants. We kind of last minute decided to go to Jordan that night and head out to Petra and stay the night there if we had to. We knew we would be a little squeezed for time if we decided to head back that night for the border before it closed but just played it by ear. The ... read more

One thing we've definitely learned from this trip is that border crossings are never fun, easy, or hassle-free. Border towns are universally hellish places, and our biggest nightmare is getting stuck in one. It takes special effort to get out of bed on the days when we're moving from one country to another. When we moved from Tiberias in Israel to Irbid in Jordan, we found the usual hassles on the Israelis side. A total lack of information at the bus station (we were told the wrong platform number by both people and the schedule board, so we missed the bus and waited two extra hours). The passport control people were bored and unfriendly (we did not help things with Chris' request that they not stamp her passport since it's new and she may want to ... read more

Geo: 30.8804, 36.4212Drove for a few minutes and arrived at the ancient city of Petra which was found more than 2000 years ago. Most of us got a short horse ride to the entry of the gorge. The ride was bumpy and I didn't like it. We walked through the gorge while Rabbi stopped every few metres to lecture us. Most of his information was going in one ear and out the other. Once we got to the end of the gorge we came to the treasury, it looked just the same as in all the travel brochures. There wasn't much of the building on the inside. Walking around we saw many tombs and temples all carved into rocks.... read more

Geo: 29.4045, 34.9758We had a 2am wake up call this morning, as we are going up Mt Sinai, which sounds like hard work. We began our walk at 3am, 5 minutes later I take the camel option- I wouldn't want the camels to get lazy and unfit!! The sky was beautiful and full of stars. The ride was really smooth and enjoyable in the dark. Passed lots of people walking up. It was getting cooler as I got higher up. On the way up I passed a small group with a lady lying on the ground- she didn't look too good. Wayne was trying to help, but couldn't do anything and kept walking. The ride was much better than walking in the dark and much more fun. The end of the ride was at the camel ... read more