Tick one off for a Seventh Wonder of the World.  We got into Petra and the town of Wadi Musa just before midday, meaning our trek through the valley was going to be at the hottest point in the day.  In the Middle East.  During Summer. On the way in, we passed a sign encouraging tourists to take rides on the donkeys and camels owned by the Bedouin as they were in an area that had the animals best welfare at heart.  This was entirely untrue and I saw some really sick treatment of little donkeys by local scum.  But I’m not going to dwell on that in this post as it was the only downfall beautiful Petra had.

We walked through the winding ravine for ages until it began to slowly open out:

Into this: Petra’s Treasury

It was truly one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen.

There’s not all the much inside it anymore though.  Apart from a guard who insisted on tying Marcelo’s turban correctly.  The site of Petra is actually huge and twisted on for ages past this.  Despite threatening to die from heat stroke a few times we decided we would brave the 800 steps up the cliff to the Monastery, which was similar to the Treasury, but bigger and less decorated.  To prove we were truly hard-asses, we climbed further up to a look out point which housed a Bedouin tent at the top.  I think we actually let ourselves in and conked out on the cushions where nice Bedouin men gave us tea out of little cups of dubious hygiene.

The Bedouin men were quite classic.  Every single on of them wore some sort of bandanna, had long black hair and carefully smudged eyeliner.  They were all Jack Sparrow.  All of them.  Others on our tour said they saw one Western girl doing the Marathon of Shame out of a tent the next morning.

We spent the rest of our time in Wadi Musa at a Bath house, getting washed and massaged then, regrettably, scrubbed a new shade of white.  I had a tan.  I did.  Up to that point where a shirtless Jordanian man scrubbed it all off.  Tear :(

Me at the top of the hill with the Monastery behind me:

Petra Photos