Petra part II and Dahab revisited

Hey folks - I'm writing to you from Istanbul Turkey, having arrived at a hostel after about 11 hours of traveling which, it turns out, is a lot.  Aside from about ten minutes when I thought I had left my camera on the plane, it has been a very smooth transit from Amman to old Istanbul, which is lovely.  I'm now staying at the Sydney Hostel where I've met two fellas from Australia who will join me for some food in a bit.  More on Istanbul later.

A few notes on my extra time in Dahab and the trip north.  Traveling Monday back to Dahab from Nuweiba was myself, Davide, Thiaout, Sarah, and three American siblings (Ian, Sarah and Leona) - I've mentioned them once or twice but I'm tying it up a bit and want to make sure it all makes sense.  We all stayed at the same spot, the Seventh Heaven hostel, which also had a dive shop (like everywhere else).  Circumstantially, I ended up with a free dive after Ian mentioned that diving was a tourist trap of sorts in front of the dive manager.  He offered to take me for free to demonstrate that money wasn't everything - I went, and it was incredible.  I saw a lot of beautiful coral, two eels, including a big one, a small mantra ray, and a lion fish which has been a dream of mine since I saw one on a poster in the back bedroom at Lake Melissa when I was a kid.  Very very cool.  The rest of the time was taking it easy, playing dominoes, drinking Egyptian beer, laying very very low.  Davide left Dahab for Nuweiba and the boat to Aqaba Jordan on Tuesday, a day before the rest of us, he was ready to book it out of town and we wished him luck.  

The boat trip was smooth, if overpriced ($80), along with the entrance to Jordan and the eventual taxi to Wadi Musa.  I parted ways with Thibout and Sarah at the port, and joined the foul-mouthed aussie pair to head straight for Petra that night.  Now that I think about it, that makes for a 12 hour travel day followed by a full day at Petra (630AM to about 1030PM after the evening walk), followed by a travel day to Amman (4 hours), followed by the 10 hour journey here, to Istanbul.  All very cool places, but that’s a lot of movement.  But I’m, getting ahead of myself. 

Joe, Harry and I wandered Petra for the day on Wednesday.  It was built mostly by the Nabataeans in the 3rd century BCE, and the Romans added on a bit later.  The siq, the cut rock, the colors of the sandstone, and the views all vied for most impressive vista, and all would be on their own incredible.  I arranged them somewhat accordingly, but there were too many and a bit too cluttered to do it well.  The photos will mostly have to speak for themselves – I spent most of the day walking around gaping at everything.  And having very sore knees – we walked maybe 5 or 6 km (the site is quite large), and up several hundred meters (sorry about the metric, I’m not converting, just playing along).  Near the end of our day, sitting on a bench watching the sun pass over the funerary temples, I saw Davide walk past!  While it was a surprise to see him, it certainly is a thing that happens (thank you Magnolia) – I ended up seeing him AGAIN at the hotel in Amman (as I think I mentioned), along with a few Japanese tourists I saw at Seventh Heaven.  Seeing him for the second time was pretty stunning, he and I took in Amman for the day and made the same trip to the airport – he flying to Beirut and me here.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it is likely that I will see him again as I have!  But again, one step at a time. 

The fellas and I, after the evening walk, crashed at the hotel.  Harry and I hopped a minibus to Amman the next morning, he getting off at the airport and me wandering the hills of Amman for a while before finding the hotel, where Davide saved me from a day of crabbiness (my legs were killing me, and the cabbies at the bus station got under my skin (my fault) and I was made fun of by school kids as I wandered around semi-lost (flashes of childhood!).  I’ll write about Amman in the next entry, including photos of the world’s tallest flagpole, which I will dedicate to Harry, who wanted to see it so very badly, but could not.  

Lots of the initial walk was through a broad flat area (street?) with carved rock on either side

Theatre!

Some of the rock was incredibly beautiful on its own, more of those in a bit

Funerary temples

This was the largest one - quite huge really

Sometimes it was hard to tell what was natural cave and what was carved

Further along was a Roman area, this is the view from the Roman theatre

Near the top of a 30 minute climb was the 'Monastery,' which was an massive edifice with little inside

'The End of the World' - view towards Israel

These views were everywhere around Petra

The rock sometimes looked like marbled steak

Some really strange rock shapes

That will have to be all from Petra, though there are dozens more.  So it goes.  Thanks for reading!