I'm not lost- I'm on an adventure!: March 2015

The next day we got up early and headed a couple hours away to a place called Wadi Rum. They've filmed movies there... like Lawrence of Arabia. It looked like Southern Utah. I'm discovering Southern Utah everywhere I go. :)

We had a 4x4 jeep ride through the sand and stuff. It was cool, but not super awesome. We were all still a bit exhausted from the trek in Petra the day before. Our driver stopped at this giant sand dune and made a comment about us being able to hike up it. We didn't even get out of the car and told him to drive on.

Mostly we just messed around taking fun pictures of each other (well, not me because I don't allow pictures of me) but I think most were on other people's camera's because I don't have that many. After that we headed back to Amman. There was some castle thing we were supposed to see but all of us said, please just take us to the hotel. Karyn and I spent the evening watching bad movies on TV. Sinae and Sibyl ventured over to the mall for some food- which served us well the next day.

In the morning we headed over to the Amman Citadel, which was pretty cool. We had to catch our flight so we didn't have a lot of time. I think there was something else we were scheduled to do but we made our driver take us to a Dead Sea handmade soap shop instead. At the mall Sinae and Sibyl had found a little kiosk selling this stuff and the girl there told them about the main shop.

If you go do Jordan you really need to check out Trinitae Soap House (8B Rainbow Street (962-6) 463-3953 This shop, newly relocated in a historic villa tucked behind the main street, carries handmade olive oil soaps, blown-glass bottles and the popular Trinity brand of cosmetics, which incorporates minerals from the Dead Sea) It was a great find!

This is Wadi Musa- the town where Petra is. (BTW- Wadi means valley)

Wadi Rum

This is water from Lawrence's Spring that was up that mountain which we were not going to hike.

I don't think you can really see it, but there's ancient writing on that rock.

So the driver said we were going to see a rock bridge. I had visions of arches like Southern Utah.
When we pulled up to this all of us were like- Is that it?

Snow! There was still lots of snow around Jordan.

Which way to Mecca? Our room was ok at this hotel. Sinae and Sibyl's room was not but they wouldn't change.

Amman from the Citadel.

Hercules temple at the Citadel.

lots of fuzzy caterpillars at the Citadel.

The museum there USED to have the Dead Sea Scrolls. What a bummer.
The museum where they are at now didn't open until after we needed to leave for the airport. :(

The outside of the Soap House. I don't know why I didn't take pictures of this place.
I had to steal this from Sinae.

I had heard of Coke Life but hadn't seen it.
I forgot to take pics of the salt and vinegar Bugles we found. YUM!

Karyn had to fly business class back because the flight was full.

Welcome back to Kuwait! It looks like everyone and their dog left town and came back the same time as us.
Luckily they processed everything pretty quickly.

After Jerash we headed to the Petra Guest House which was about 4 hours drive. We stopped and had what was sold to us as a "traditional Jordanian meal" but was in fact a really bad, over priced, truck stop meal. On the way to Petra we passed A LOT of snow. It had been snowing in Jordan the week before and a lot of it was still around. Fortunately for us the weather was actually very nice and all of us agreed that there's no way we would go in the summer.

We got there some time between 8:30 and 9pm- just a little too late to do the night tour for that night. I wish we would have got there in time for that because doing it all in one day is exactly what we ended up doing the next day and it makes for a VERY long and tiring day. Our hotel is the closest hotel to the entrance to Petra- which was awesome. I would totally recommend it.

There was a security check point with an x-ray machine and metal detector at the entrance to the hotel. That was a first for me, but totally understandable since Jordan is in a very unstable area and they just declared war on ISIS. We felt safe the whole time and it was nice for us because there were a lot less tourists, but you could see how it was hurting the local people that rely on the tourists.

We had a great guide, Ali, for our tour of Petra We started at 7am- or maybe it was 7:30, I don't remember exactly but we spent the whole day in Petra and left around 4pm. There is a lot of walking but we stopped A LOT and took pictures. We didn't hike to all the places that you can hike to but we did hike to the Monastery, because we were told was worth the hike and it was. They have donkeys you can hire to take you up the 800+ "steps" but I totally didn't trust that. Our driver had told us that they get scared and people fall off them-- not how I want to spend my vacation.

We pretty much spent the whole time saying-- This is so amazing! Other random things from the day: The softest, cutest kitty jumped up on my lap at the Treasury. I swear cats can pick out the cat lovers of the group. We ran into two other groups of people that work at our school also on vacation there. Long underwear was a good idea in the morning but a very bad idea in the afternoon when hiking. There were lots of wild tulip plants and I would love to be there when they're in bloom.

Our driver had insisted that we needed to purchase our Petra at Night tickets in the morning so we did, but I don't think we needed to and I wish we hadn't. When we hiked out of Petra at 4pm to go find some food and take a rest we were EXHAUSTED. Sinae and Sybil decided not to go and just lost out on the money. If I didn't want those night time shots so badly I probably wouldn't have gone back. That's why it's better if you can break it up over two days- it's just A LOT for one day. The thought of walking back in and back out was not a happy one.

The night time part was kinda cool. The path is lit with candles in bags and then the Treasury is lit with lots of candles in bags and then a spot light thing. They have some music or something-- a very short show and then you hike back out. Overall it's not super impressive, but I liked it for the pictures. I didn't get exactly what I wanted though. My new tripod was not holding the camera when I put it in a vertical position- it would slowly go down and since my exposures were for 30 seconds I was ending up with light streaks. :( Super frustrating because that was a really cool shot... *sigh* I guess I'll have to go back. :)