Day 11: Petra from the top

Today, we went to see the non touristic side of Petra. Petra is the western name for Wadi Mousa and the word Petra is Greek for "stone". As the name implies, the ancient city of Petra is carved entirely out of the sides of the arid, barren hills of the region. The hills themselves are unlike any that I've ever seen before.

The curvy road near the entrance.

We first entered through the gate and walked about 5 minutes along the curvy road that we walked last night. Then we walked out of the road and towards a pepper tree. We rubbed its leaves on our hands to smell its delightful aroma. Next to the tree is a narrow path that we climbed. And then we climb some more. And then more.

We stopped when we reached a small plateau. The view from here is simply astonishing. As you can see in the picture below, the people who lived in Petra carved caves to live in. Today, the Bedouins, which are Jordanian shepherds, live in these caves, although the Petra Bedouins don't actually raise sheep anymore, but rather, they pester tourists to buy souvenirs.

Beautiful, and hot...

 We continued walking up and down these hills for a while. I wasn't sure about the direction we're heading in, but the destination was the High Place of Sacrifice. The next interesting thing we saw was this rock that looks like a ship. The tour guide never mentioned it, but it really does.

A Ship?

 Okay, after this, there was only hiking and nothing of historical or cultural importance. So, I'll let the pics do the talking (otherwise, you'll just be reading "we walked up, we walked down").

I love Petra's rocks!

The sleeping camel

Red rocks

Purple rocks

I see a train?

A donkey belonging to the Bedouins, with ancient obelisks behind it.

So high up. See the tiny white speck? That's a building.

Blue lizard!

We are now at the High Place of Sacrifice. Now our tour guide will kill off one of our members to appease the gods.

The High Place of Sacrifice isn't special looking. It's a small flat plateau where the ancient people carved out a hole to hold the blood. After visiting this place, we hiked down. At this point, we have walked for over 3 hrs in the blazing Middle East sun. The hike down and the walk back to our hotels took 4 hrs. So, more pics.

We had lunch over in that hut.

Funny story here: The sign said "Danger: Don't Wander Off the Path!", so people went off the path and made cairns (aka stacked rocks). Quite dangerous, in my opinion, because it was really steep.

Pastel

A beautiful caved. Who needs paint when the rocks are so colorful?

Tombs

Tomb city

Delectable desert desserts.

Almost there..

Down there is touristic Petra. Will be doing that tomorrow.

Finally, we have arrived at the touristic part of Petra. From here, we were harassed by Bedouins trying to make us ride their camels or donkey back to the gate. We were warned by our tour guide not to ride these animals or ride with out own intuitions because they always offer it at a ridiculous price. However, by this time, we learned to haggle. To haggle in the Middle East:

1. Name your price
2. Walk away and hear the seller gradually lower the price
3. Finally after a couple of steps, the seller will succumb to your price. Walk back and purchase your item. Put in a bit of extra money for tip.

Side note: I always wanted to ride the donkey, but after seeing how they abuse that poor animal, I didn't. They would just randomly whip it for no reason from time to time and it makes me cringe.

So, then we split up and walked back to the hotel. I drank my last gulp of water here, not knowing that the distance back to the hotel is 3km. And so I walked 3km without water in the 40C/105F heat. Nearly fainted, but it's good to be young because you can still make these stupid mistakes. When I got out of gate of Petra, I bought a 1.5L bottle of water and drained it completely within 5 minutes. I went for a swim in the hotel pool later and then we had a HUGE dinner:

The dish is called Magluba. Its rice and chicken with yogurt on the side.