She gave us tour group stickers (generic, for the tour company) and matching hats. The hats were a bit lame so I just chucked mine in my bag. We drove through Eilat and over to the Yitzchak Rabin border crossing to Jordan. We got passports stamped on the Israeli side and went through to the Jordan side. The middle bit, a no-man´s land, was an empty bit of road. Almost felt like we were walking across in some prisoner exchange thing. On the other side we got our visas sorted by a tour group rep, and waited at the couple tourist shops there whilst it was happening. There were some very cute, possibly stray and disease-ridden, kittens playing with each other.
Once checked through to Jordan we jumped on a coach and started a small trip around the city of Aqaba. I don´t specifically recall seeing that on the tour info, and I think it was just an extra bit for Jordan to try sell itself to foreigners. Was very boring and the tour guide didn´t really know what he was talking about, just pointing out random things like ¨and here´s a post office.¨
We finally got on our way to Petra. The drive up north and through the mountains took two hours. This was two hours of some unnecessary stops at tourist shop / rest area places, and the guide shouting through a tinny, seemingly in need of repair PA system about the area, and not shutting up about some valley we were driving through. One worthwhile stop was atop a cliff side overlooking mountains and valleys, quite spectacular.
We finally reached Petra not too long after. The day was already hot. We decided to skip the short, cheesy, 800 metre horse ride and just walk to the entrance.
The walk down through the valley was absolutely amazing. The natural chasm was beautiful.
The sun was beating down so we stuck to bits of shade while we descended down the path. On the way down we had to make way for horse and cart sort of taxis that were speeding up and down the path, with the horses leaving us little surprises on the way that we had to watch our step for.
We eventually made it down to the treasury, that famous building carved into the rock (well, the façade is famous anyway). It*s that place where the grail rests in IJ and the Last Crusade. It all makes a bit more sense when you actually see it all in real life. There was just a room inside, no tunnel with old booby traps and whatnot. How disappointing! We spent a short bit of time there, in the shade, before the group kept making our way down the valley.
Further down was the old caves and city of Petra, carved into the rock faces and the cliffs. A bit cool to see but not all that impressive after seeing lots of the Egyptian stuff a week earlier. There were some old tomb façades up on a hill, and a large amphitheatre, which were the only two things worth seeing down there.
Our guide took us climbing up the rocks to a much higher vantage point to see the buildings. It was a cool little climb up, going through some caves and whatnot, and really getting a much better view than from down on the ground.
At the end of this little climb were some burial chamber caves with coloured ceilings. The yellow paint on the roof was so pronounced and so well preserved, and really quite amazing.
We stopped at a big tourist rest area in the shade, and then shortly after we started our trek back up to the top of the canyon. The heat was really beating down now and both of us were a bit worse for wear from it. But, we managed with only several stops to reach the top. By this time Emma wasn*t all too fantastic, probably too dehydrated, and so we bought a cold bottle of Fanta. I think we must have finished it off in about 40 seconds between us. Delicious and refreshing.
Once on the bus we started our way back to Aqaba. Like before there were far too many unnecessary stops along the way. I really don*t think an experienced coach driver needs a rest stop every half hour. I think it was more because the guide or company gets commission at the places we stopped at.
Back at the border crossing we left the coach and headed back over to the Israel side. There we faced such heavy security, in many various stages, to get back into the country. I suppose they have a need to be careful and all but it did get a tad ridiculous. We got the minibus back to our hostel and decided to find internet.
We walked down to the waterfront area. On the way we passed the Eilat airport which is situated smack in the middle of the town. Very cool. Down the bottom of the street we found a large shopping centre. We sat outside at a grassy area and opened up Ozy. We found wifi networks! But, the battery on the poor thing went in just a few minutes when the Ipods were connected to it. There was little choice but to venture into the shopping centre. There we found air conditioned comfort but no place to sit with a power point. We had all but given up when we went into MacDonalds and lo and behold found a single power point socket near some seats.
We spent a couple hours there and even bought food there to make our sitting, using their power and internet a bit more legit. Their chicken burgers are a lot nicer than ours, grilled like Hungry Jacks. We didn´t get a huge amount done in those two or so hours, and the posts that we did put up we later re-did anyway. We stayed until they kicked us out because they were closing up.
After that we gave up and went back to the hostel to get some sleep.
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