Petra

We knew we couldn’t come to Jordan and not see one of the new 7 wonders of the world.   We piled in Najib’s car at 8:30 and drove 3 hours to the city of Petra… yes. 3 hours.  it was a long drive to say the least… but totally worth it!  The views on the way there were incredible and the kids did pretty good.  I would have given my left arm for some car seats right about now.

Amman is one of the red dots, that is where we flew into.. then down a bit is Madaba, that is where the church was with the mosaic map, then down further is Dead sea – where we were staying,  and down even further was Petra. 

Petra’s ancient city was discovered in the 1800’s by an explorer, but was built by the Nabataeans over 2000 years ago and was a flourishing city in the time of Christ.  At one point between 20,000-30,000 people lived in the city. 

To read a lot more about Petra click here.

you’re supposed to allow up to 3 days to cover Petra.. we had like 3 hours.. better than nothing!  The prices for entry were steep! It cost us about 100 USD to get in.. ouch.

Once inside, they offer you horses for  the equivalent of about $5 each.  Sure, we’ll take 3 (Audrey wanted her own horse). 

One very excited little girl!  How precious is the picture below? she was so tiny on the horse – but loved.every.single.minute.

I get the giggles every time I see this picture of Charles… doesn’t he look bigger than the horse?? That horse was not happy about it either!  He was very stubborn and didn’t want to go.

What we didn’t know is that this was a quick horse ride just to the other, real entrance. We didn’t even get that far though. The guides got out of view from the others and offered to take us on an ‘off road’ adventure. uhh? Charles and I kept looking at each other, like what do we do? We weren’t sure exactly what they were offering to us, but they said it would cost us about another $100 and it would take an hour…  and kept pointing up.. they said, “if you don’t like, you don’t pay.” hmm.. Ok, both of us were still a little uncertain – but went for it.

How cool are these caves?! I was NOT about to go in one though. ha.

This is us going off the beaten path with our guides..

What ?! rock climbing on horseback?! oh dang we didn’t know that. – we probably shouldn’t have let Audrey go solo.  I was nervous many times.. and I’m not really a nervous nelly mama, so you know it had to be scary. However, I only had to yell out once, maybe twice.. “Hold on to her!! She’s gonna fall!!” to the very responsible 13 year old that was in the front of the line with her. sheesh.

We saw many cool caves.. and handsome guys.. oh wait, that ‘s Charles!

So this must have just been my week – Once again.. one of our guides had sweet eyes for me.. something about those Jordanians? LOL.  He stopped on the trail and ran out of his way to pick this rose for me.  Then he asked if he could take pictures of me with his cell phone and would sit down for several minutes afterwards texting away.. who knows what he was saying – but all I know that these last couple of days were certainly a boost to this tired old mama’s ego. ha. what a surprise!

me and my boys below:

Very very rocky desert

I just love this picture of Audrey below:

This next picture makes me a little afraid of heights -

far far below from where we were standing was this ^^ roman-style coliseum.  It seats 3,000. It would be so cool to see 3,000 people together here in it’s heyday… like year 1 AD.  

Those horses hiked a long way up.. at some points it was too steep and we had to get off the horses and walk them up… as you can see below, Charles and Will traded horses with me and of course Will went back and forth about every 10 minutes.

We got to a point literally in the middle of no where.. mountains as far as you could see then the lead guide says... 

“Okay, finished with the horses. You go from here on your own.”

Me: Wait. What?! You’re coming with us, right?

Him:NO. All finish. You pay now.  We go with horses.

Me:Uhh.. not hardly  You can’t leave us here with two kids

– Charles and I just looked at each other and knew we were both on the same page.  We told the guy, how about one of you walk us to the bottom of this mountain and we will pay you when we are down there.  They were not happy about it at all. He didn’t know enough English to argue.. but he sure did yell a few things in Arabic we couldn’t understand.  He agreed, and sent my new boyfriend.. ha..  It was SUCH a long walk. seriously miles.  we had no idea we would be hiking this far, but still it was beautiful and totally an adventure for the kids.. and best of all – downhill!  They were tired from the long horse ride {and 3 hour car ride} and so were we. 

and we walked and walked

Stunning isn’t it?! We thought we were almost finished but had no idea there was still at least another 45 minutes of walking involved

Thankfully the guide was really helpful and carried Audrey for a while.

Totally amazing that they carved the sandstone like this.  The color was a beautiful pinkish tan.

This is the Siq – it is their old street into the city – it is a really narrow path between the cliffs. The people that lived in this time {forgot  how to spell the name} also designed ways to control water flow in the city, and were very prosperous merchants.. amazing for their time.

 

AH! the highlight.. The Treasury! Seriously – carved out of STONE! The design was beautiful, intricate and absolutely mind-blowing that people did this over 2,000 years ago without any mechanical machinery.  HOW. IN. THE. WORLD???

maybe that is why it is considered one of the new 7 wonders of the world! Some of the movies that were shot here include Transformers 2 and of course everyone knows about Indiana Jones.

 

So Cool.!

so is this guy. ha. He looks like a cross between Pirates of the Caribbean and a sleepy tour guide.  On our way back, we weren’t sure how long the walk was since we took the “up and over” tour.  At this spot, it seemed every second someone was coming up to you trying to sell you something and not taking no for an answer.  I felt sorry for them, but really, it got annoying.  Kids as young as 6 or 7 were trying to sell postcards.. etc.. after a few minutes we were ready to get out of there.

These horse drawn carriages brought people to the exit. we negotiated with a guy for a little while and decided against it. we totally should have paid him.  One of the guys driving these saw that Audrey was tired and offered to bring her to the front for us. Dude, are you crazy!? We politely declined and said “no, she stays with us”.  Then he was trying to insist and we had to a bit firmer with our reply. 

After we were all sick of walking we did hire a guy to take us to the exit.  It was nearly 2 and none of us had eaten lunch.  Charles went to find Najib and I went to order a pizza for the road trip back.  Yep. 3 hours back.  by the time we arrived it was dark and we were all exhausted.  No rest for the weary.. we had to pack up and get going the next morning we were flying out to our next destination. 

Najib came to pick us up the next morning in a smoked out car.. the smoke smell was stronger than usual, his driving was fast and lots of windy curves as we drove thru and around all the mountains and hills.  Audrey complained of a stomach ache the same as she did every morning of our trip after about 10 minutes of being in Najib’s small car.. It all added up for me that she was getting car sick.  I was a little nauseated myself.  She fell asleep in the car on the way to the airport and when we arrived, I went inside with the kids and Charles got the luggage on a cart and then

BLECH. SHE SPEWED!!. right in the entryway. right where people were crying and hugging and doing their goodbyes. right where people were rolling their luggage. oh my word. seriously. what a mess!

I was in shock.  I tried to clear the crowd so she didn’t barf on anyone – then I’m looking for something to clean up this mess – then I realize my child is still throwing up so I go to console her, then I see Will wandering.. ahhhh! Charles comes thru the crowds to see the disaster unfolding and calms me down, takes Will and finds a janitor. thank you!

I whisked her off to the bathroom, cleaned her up and we continue as if nothing ever happened.  I knew exactly what was wrong with her so I wasn’t concerned of a recurrence, but just in case she carried a plastic bag with her. ha. vacation memories.