Jordan – February 2014 – Petra

After a typical 16 hr flight and the resultant jet lag we arrived in Dubai to spend some time with our Daughter and family before she and hubby set off for a break in India while we looked after the kids.

Fortunately the maid (Luz) has a great relationship with all the children and was indispensable in helping us through  the week. Also the eldest daughter, Maddy (8yo), was a great help and elected to sleep with young Alexandra on a couple of occasions which made a huge difference to the situation of Grandparent rejection.

Driving the kids to school etc in Dubai was putting me in good stead for driving on the wrong side of the road in Spain in a few weeks time.

After Amanda and Christian (her hubby) had arrived back in Dubai we only had a few days before Chris and I set off for Jordan.

Arriving in Jordan late evening on the 18th Feb we were expecting to be met by a pre arranged driver holding up our names in the typical fashion.  Hmmm! no driver to be found. Contacted the guy we had organised the driver with and he assured me he was at the airport and had been for an hour (our plane was late). I was told the drivers name was Hamza so I proceeded to walk around the arrivals hall and call out “Hamza” to every middle eastern looking fellow that I could find that had the “I am a driver look” about him. A lovely Jordanian lady who was on our flight went out of her way to help us and allowed us to use her phone (local charges instead of Telstra Roaming Charges) to contact our Jordanian organiser.

The arrivals hall was starting to thin out and we were at a loss as to what to do. Taxis are a bit hit and miss.  Suddenly a guy appears with a huge smile on his face. “Sorry – Traffic Traffic” was his exclamation. We soon discovered that Hamza has virtually nil English and we of course have nil Arabic. Then we discovered that we had to wait for another guy, who turned out to be our drivers, driver!!! A long story but suffice to say there was certainly no traffic problem on the roads, so to cut to the chase we were duly delivered to our Hotel in Amman.

Arrived at our hotel with a very hefty reminder of just where we were in the world. The hotel was protected by concrete barriers and vehicle entry was protected with pneumatically powered, 20mm thick steel barriers that rose from the road surface to prevent explosive loaded vans etc from getting access and blowing up the hotel.  Vehicle duly inspected by the security guy we then had to got through security, Xray etc with our luggage before entering the hotel.

Ibis Hotel Amman Security Barriers

Our driver (sans drivers, driver) picked us up the following morning in his “Taxi”. We put one and one together and realised that our driver was a regular taxi driver who’s licence did not allow him to pick up fares from the airport so he had enlisted a mate with a private car to pick us up the previous evening from the airport. Hence the “Drivers, Driver” situation.

We set off very excited about visiting the ancient site of Petra. We discovered that our driver, Hamza (Pronounced Humza) was addicted to coffee. Not that there are any regulr espresso coffee shops to be had but a plethora of roadside coffee shops who serve up what we call “Turkish Coffee”. A term that was completely foreign to Hamza who insisted that it was “Brazilian Coffee”. Whatever, we became fond of it albeit a little too sweet for our taste.  The secret ingredient we were to discover was the addition of Cardamom.

Our coffee being prepared while taking a break en route to Petra

Our ever smiling driver, Hamza and his Datsun Sunny Taxi.

The little Datsun Sunny Taxi we were soon to discover is quite capable of cruising along at 145 km/h. A little disconcerting when the rear seat belts were made inoperable and only the driver has access to a seat belt.

Buildings built in readiness for some future expansion

In the rural areas of Jordan we figured that people are very optimistic. When they build their houses and small commercial buildings, they always plan for expansion. Seems that it rarely happens but at the very least, do plan for it. Nearly all buildings in the small villages had starter bars protruding from their roofs in readiness for that boom that was surely to come in the near future.

Modern Petra

The trip to Petra from Amman was around 4 hours. We arrived early afternoon, grabbed some lunch in a restaurant next to our hotel and then eagerly headed for the ancient Petra site, the entrance gate being only 200 meters from our hotel.

Heading down the path to “The Site” we were approached by some dudes who insisted that our entry tickets included a free horse ride to the Al Siq (the main approach to Petra). Of course this free ride didn’t include tips, so $30 later we had our “free horse ride” and were well on our way.

Our Free horse ride, passing the Obelisk Tombs.
That is my money belt by the way, not over indulgence.

We fitted in what we could on the first afternoon, found a fabulous Arabian Restaurant that evening with fantastic food then headed off early to the site the following morning. We had a lot to see and we ended up walking 16km during that day including a hike up 800 steps to The Monastery (Al Deir). Needless to say we were exhausted that evening.

The gallery below is a small selection of the photos from around the ancient city of Petra.

Please see the main gallery here for a more complete series of photos.

During our trek on the second day we accepted an invitation to have some tea from a lady with a stall near the royal tombs. She was born in one of the man made ancient caves that are part of the history of Petra, and so has lived her whole life virtually on the Petra Site. She brought out an old plastic bag full of ancient coins, all around 2000 years old that she had found around the site. Up until 10 years ago fossicking was allowed but is now banned. We were gob smacked. Her coins were a better collection than what was in the nearby museum.

2000 year old roman coins

After another fantastic Middle Eastern Feast that evening we were early to bed in readiness for a long trip to Wadi Rum the next morning – it took a little longer than expected due to an unforeseeable complication – details next post