Petra

A great day climbing all over the heritage site of Petra. Ayman, our guide, was determined by any means possible to be the first people into the site, and so marshaled us fearlessly and marched us from the bus 800m down the Siq, the narrow canyon that is the only entrance to the site. Whilst a few lone couples managed to pass us, we were the first group in, and had the Siq and the Treasury building to ourselves, both for the experience and for the photos.

The Treasury and the surrounding buildings are really an impressive sight. Carved out of the sandstone rock from top to bottom, the craftsmanship involved is of a standard that we can't match today. The sands have covered a lot of it, and there are another two stories of the Treasury still hidden below the ground level that we were standing on, so it's huge. Only about 10% of the whole site has been excavated.

It's a bit boring to read about all of the various things we saw and in what particular order - we were there for about 9 hours - so best to say that we walked a trail down the Siq to the Treasury past the theatre to the Palace Tomb, then along the roman city, main street, and temple to the museum, before our first climb of some 800 stairs to the Monastery for a great view of the place. Down again for a break, then eventually up a much steeper trail of some 600 stairs to the High Place, with it's commanding view of the site again. Spend some time just sitting and gazing, before heading down the steps, which always seems much harder than going up. Several of our group took donkeys up the steep trails. You learned to let the donkeys go past - they weren't stopping for anybody.

So we saw it all, not just the standard trail that the busloads get to in their 4 hours at the site. A couple of miscellaneous facts. The site was built by the Nabatian people (descended from Ishmael's eldest), then the Romans took the place and built a roman city, then more was added in the Byzantium period when the Romans became Christians. So, the main Nabatian city, which includes all of the famous sites is actually called Sella, and the Roman city within the city, as it were, is called Petra. Both mean 'The Rock', although all of us tourists only know it as Petra.

I normally don't see many Italian tourists on our travels, but today there were busloads of them, all with padded down jackets. At least they had left their high heels at home, but they still walk like they drive.

And the bedouin. Hmm. They are probably a lovely people, but a ruthless money extracting machine. Horse rides are 'free', but then they want a large tip. Saw several insisting half way up the canyon that this was the 'station' and their passengers should get off, so that they could dash back down and hopefully get a second fare. Buggy rides mow you down as they gallop back down the Siq to get another passenger. They never have change for purchases, even though the last person gave them small notes. The young boys deliberately try to spoil your photos, unless you pay them to go away. And so it goes.

It started raining again as we got back down from the second climb, so everybody started drifting back to the bus early, dashing our plan of being the first group in and the last out. Full scale rain by the time we were back to our bus, so we headed off to Wadi Rum where it wasn't raining to get dry. Spent New Year's Eve at a desert camp, sleeping in tents. Camp stretcher type beds. I've had better, but if you lost yourself under the pile of blankets it was quite warm.

The New Year's Eve meal was lamb and chicken cooked in a fire pit, with lovely salads to go with it. The firepit was unveiled with a flourish to lots of camera flashes and applause. The meal was accompanied with much dancing and a live musician, so apart from the usual smokey environment, a great time was had by all, due no doubt to the drinks purchased prior to entering camp.

It's kind of odd. Ashley is in Melbourne celebrating New Year eight hours before us, and Brendan and Rachel are celebrating in New York some eight hours behind us, so we are definitely strung out around the globe this year.