A.B. Away: Petra “You want a donkey?”

(John) It is a fair assumption made that because we look like any other tourists we must therefore be wealthy and stupid. We will probably pay whatever is asked and must hate walking so much that we would be willing to ride anything to avoid it. The assumption is fair because after two days in Petra we have seen it work countless times. We were told it takes 1 hour to climb to the Monastery – only 20 minutes by Donkey. “It will take 30 minutes to walk to the exit from here, you are very tired, here ride my horse”. “You need to buy a drink from me, it is 15 minutes more to the top”. Actually, the 800 steps to the Monastery took 30 minutes even with time to take pictures around every turn. It is 5 minutes to the exit and how do you know how tired I am? It is only 4 minutes to the top and I have a litre of water a litre of juice and ½ a litre of milk in my knapsack. I have been asked “you want a donkey?” so many times that I have run out of ways to say no politely. Tomorrow I shall say “no thanks I don't smoke” and see how many people I offend.

On the subject of smoking. I have noticed that there are no old people in Jordan. There are not even retired people in their 60's or 70's. Either they have special places where they go or they are hidden away or as I fear Jordanian's do not live that long and judging from the amount of smoking that people here do I'd like to find out if the two are related.

Back to my main theme - It was quite expensive to come to Petra - 60 JD each for a 3 day pass. But as the children were free and 3 days only cost 5 JD more than two and 10 JD more than one. It begins to look more reasonable. Interestingly if you decide to come to Petra for a day trip from another city the cost is 90 JD. The reason being, they want people to spend money in town as well as at the site. Sam told me that the price for Jordanians is 1 JD a day although he might have made that up. If he's right then it is less hard to swallow when you know that minimum wage in Jordan is 5 JD a day. There are a lot of Bedouin people at the site selling overpriced souvenirs, tea, horse, camel and donkey rides. Sam and I tried to buy a goat bell but the price was definitely not right, while we were looking Sam picked up an ancient looking coin. He noticed on closer inspection that it was a US 1 cent piece. The stall holder told him it was just 1 JD and remarked that it was 30 years old and made sure we checked out the date. I remarked that it was indeed thirty years old and was worth 1 cent. For me I could live without anything that they offer, but I'm probably in the minority. There were a lot of tourists paying good money for a lot of rubbish. They were also happy to hop on a donkey to climb those 800 steps to the Monastery. Lesley and Sam saw some tourists happily paying 35 US for a buggy ride to the exit. A distance of less than 2 kms. But then if you need a donkey to climb a hill or to get to your bus on time and if 35 bucks is chump change then clearly a service is provided. And one joy is that other than one police jeep, there are no motorized vehicles at the Petra site. As far as I could tell everything comes in on donkeys. Maybe I'm just a little insulted that the donkey ride merchants don't look at me and think 'that guy looks fit; I bet he doesn't need a donkey' and then just leave me the hell alone. Fact is I'm just lumped in with all the other tourists, the general assumption is made and - “you want a donkey?” I do want to make one notable exception. The souvenir store in a cave just opposite the Amphitheatre gave us a good big cup of tea for a very reasonable ½ JD – and they did not once hassle us to buy anything.

Money hungry merchants aside, Petra is fantastic. The scenery is absolutely the best I can remember. The ancient Nabataean tombs are even more incredible than expected and there is so much other ruined stuff left by Romans and others who came later that we walk nonchalantly over 2000 year old piles of pottery shards. In two days we have covered a hell of a lot of ground. I have no idea how far we hiked each day, but we got up really high and walked really far. With one day to go there is still lots to see and more hikes to do. They say that there is a lot more of Petra yet to be discovered and that the area it covers could be over three times what exists today. They plan to reveal it slowly, both to avoid closures and keep people coming back. I am really happy we came and exited to go back for another day.

A quick word about the Valentine hostel where we are staying. It is freezing. The weather in Petra right now is not like we experienced down in Aqaba, it is bloody cold and the dorm we are in is colder than that. The showers have hot water sometimes, just not when you want a shower. The beds have thin foam mattresses through which every rod of the metal frame supporting it can be felt. There is a common lounge area that is quite warm and a great place to mingle with other travellers if you don't mind having a couple of cigarettes worth of second hand smoke. I'm sitting in the dorm in all my clothes, a warm sweater, my rain jacket and my toque. Having said that I think the hostel has got a pretty good grasp of what budget travellers need while also, sensibly, trying to make a decent profit. They provide a bus to and from the Petra site and have arranged for the minibuses to other cities to stop at the hostel. They provide excellent meals that are very competitively priced (although we have been finding cheaper restaurants and buying breakfast and lunch at the grocery store and bakery to save money) and I suspect that when the weather actually warms up it might be a really fun place to stay. At 12 JD a night for the 4 of us, it is the cheapest place we have stayed in Jordan by far. It would just be nice to have a heater in this room and a less back breaking bed. I just hope I survive the night.

(Lesley) We have been exploring Petra for the past two days. For those unfamiliar with Petra and too busy to look it up on the internet, here are some tidbits: The city of Petra was built by the Nabataeans (originally from the Yemen/Saudi Arabia area) who arrived in the area in the 6^th century BC. It was a grand trading city along a caravan route. It was very successful for hundreds of years. Eventually, when trade routes opened up elsewhere, (sea routes and the silk route near Palmyra) Petra was by-passed. Located in a mountainous desert area along the Great Rift Valley, the big rocks were pulled apart by the movement of tectonic plates and there are now great wadis (valleys) running through the place. Much of Petra is in ruins as there were two large earthquakes.

Entering Petra, one walks through the Siq, a narrow gorge where you can see, by looking at the grain in the rocks on either side, that they were once attached. The Nabataeans carved immense beautiful structures into these mountains. Two of the most famous being the Treasury and the Monastery. The Treasury was not a treasury at all, but a tomb. The monastery as well was a tomb, but later inhabitants seemed to have turned it into a church, hence the name The Monastery.

Water was scarce (and still is) so the Nabataens found ways to catch and direct the precious water. They were brilliant engineers in this regard building dams, water canals, water storage cisterns etc.

There are also literally millions of caves everywhere. Off the beaten track, the caves are all inhabited by Bedouin. We picnicked in the less smelly caves to shelter from the wind.

Petra has been a real highlight for us. We bought the three day passes and spent 9 hours a day for the first two days. On the last day we eased up a bit having seen everything we wanted to see and having hiked ourselves out of energy the previous days. I would rank Petra right up there with other sights we saw like Peripetuse and Queribus, the Taj Mahal, Carcasonne, the Lake District and Hampi. It was the hiking, the physical exertion and the spectacular views that really made it's impression on us. We enjoy working hard and feeling tired at the end of the day.

Much to our delight, here in Wadi Musa (the town for Petra) we found some other backpackers and some cheap dorm beds. We have enjoyed swapping stories and sharing advice about where to go, where to stay, routes through different countries which supermarkets don't overcharge travellers, etc. We have also delighted in comparing tales about how people have tried to rip us off or overcharge us for things. Coming from India, we wondered if our shock about prices was just in comparison or if it was indeed accurate. It seems most of the backpackers are finding that Jordan is geared more for tourists with lots of dinar rather than those of us on a shoestring. But by sharing tips and encouraging each other we are all armed against the sea of dinar hungry sharks.

On our bus ride here, the bus guy tried to charge a surcharge of one dinar each for our packs. A couple of us refused and said we would rather manage our packs on our laps. This didn't go over well but was accepted. It was the first time we had run into this on any bus in Jordan; as it was also the first time we were on a bus filled mainly by foreigners. The ride already cost more for us than locals, so we just said No to the bag surcharge. Our prior choices to take local buses were obviously smart.

The hostel we are at is great as I mentioned for meeting people, but the weather is brutal right now and we are freezing in the 14 bed dorm room. Apparently there is hot water but it is hard to shower in a freezer. I did it yesterday and it took me an hour to warm up. We would love to wash some clothes but I'm not sure they would dry so I dare not. Today, we have the door and all the windows open in hope that some of the afternoon heat will warm the room.

We switched Mhari's mattress. She had an unbearable awful mattress. It was so worn she had to sit on her pillow to keep from falling through the metal rods and landing on the girl on the bunk below. She is now on a mattress worthy of the princess in the famous princess and the pea story. I'm envious as I have to lay carefully between the metal support rods to minimize their protruding into my backside.

This hostel has a lot of things well sussed. They have 7 and 8 am bus shuttles to Petra and two return rides as well at 4 and 5. They have a buffet supper for 5 JD.. They even meet the buses coming into to Wadi Musa so they get the lion's share of the travellers. There seem to be quite a few locals dropping by in the evening to procure spirits in a brown bag too. Generally they have their market sown up rather well.