Day 13 (First Half): Little Petra on our way to Wadi Rum

We departed from Petra to go to the Wadi Rum dessert in the morning and then went to a dessert shop. We bought some fruits and baklavas, which are Middle Eastern sweets. Just a reminder, Ramadan had already started and thus no restaurants are open until sunset in places not named "Petra", since Petra is extremely touristic. Therefore, we won't be able to eat a real meal until about 8:30 pm and the only meal we had that day, and the days after were hotel breakfasts, which weren't of the best quality. During the daytime, we would just go buy snacks like chips (or what the rest of the world calls crisps) and eat them in the car or in our hotel room. Also, we couldn't drink in public because that is very offensive to Muslims who haven't drank since 3 am (hence, this is why all restaurants are closed).

The first stop on our way to the Wadi Rum was Little Petra. Since there were no chargers or access to electricity in the Wadi Rum desert, I decided to save my camera's battery and took only 3 pics of Little Petra. There weren't many interesting things about Little Petra because it basically was Petra, but smaller (duh!). There were tombs and stuff and a viewpoint that was alright. Here are the 3 pics:

Beautiful marble art in a cave

Little Petra viewpiont

More interesting rock formations of Petra

After Little Petra, we went to a souvenir shop/rest area. From here we get to see Petra one last time. We ate our baklavas here. Baklava is basically a ton of flour, oil, and sugar packed into one tiny bite. The first five bites of baklava was very tasty. However, soon, my mouth was drenched with sugar and oil so the rest of the baklava I bought was almost inedible. Well, now I know that Middle Eastern people do not eat deserts like Americans (and British as far as I know) do, because we eat deserts like a "meal", but they only eat deserts as a snack, which is 2 or 3 bites. Therefore, they make those 2 or 3 bites very sweet and concentrated so that they can be satisfied. However, the deserts that we eat are usually "medium" sweet so that we eat a lot more.

Overview of Petra. Very strange rock formations overall. I wonder how they were formed.

The drive to Wadi Rum was about 3 hours. In the car, we listened to more stories told by our tour guide. The tour guide loves to tell stories and at this point, most of people in the group are kind of bored of his stories because not all of them end or if they do, the ending would be disappointing or anti-climatic. The beginning of his stories are very exciting though. On this trip, we learned that he has 7 children. His secret? He doesn't put TV in his house....