Our first morning at Petra was freezing cold, walking through the Siq (a tunnel almost 2km through the rocks) was like a freezer. The first sight of the treasury was pretty amazing; I may have missed my first glimpse had it not been for a bus load of close to incapacitated tourists having it pointed out for a photo opportunity as it peeked through the rocks. The treasury is cut straight out of stone and is (apparently) the most famous attraction in Petra, I preferred the Monastery as it was surrounded by less people and had the sun on it for a good deal of the day, I daresay that the Treasury is the most popular as most people can just walk the couple of kilometres in!
We climbed up to the High place of Sacrifice to look over the ancient city, in all directions carvings of buildings and ruins of buildings can be seen. From there we decided to take a ‘shortcut’ down to some other sights. A man offered to guide us, we figured we were not on the right track but defiantly didn’t want a guide, not even at a ‘cheap price for you’. It took us an hour to get down the hill; we were a long way from the usual track, but kept discovering old remains and caves on the way.
The climb up tot he monastery was defiantly worth the effort of 700 steps, we saw Ronald at the top who had only counted 686 steps. On the way up we were offered many donkeys and mules to ride, the going rate for a donkey up the hill was about 4JD, about 6 Aussie dollars.
From there we wandered back down, I had my fisheye lens on and spotted a lone donkey with no apparent owner. Here started a whole new business idea...Untamed Pet Images, to be launched in 2011. I also discovered that I have a ‘donkey mode’ on my camera....errr..., well maybe just a setting that works really well for photographing donkeys with a fisheye lens! A few more sights and several donkeys later (more donkeys than sights) we arrive back at the gate exhausted, the sun has dropped and the air is bloody freezing!
The next day Spencer stays behind at camp as he does not want another day at Petra, I had paid the extra for a two day ticket (it was only 10% extra for another day) so I head off with a few others. I decide to take my fourth horse ride of my life, hoping that it is not going to turn out as bad as the first three, I was not off to a good start when I have the horse man yelling to a manager that I had told him he could not demand a tip (this is before I had even got on the horse) the horse ride is included in your ticket, and the ticket at 70 US dollars is pretty steep, I was sticking with my right to ‘consider tipping your horse handler’ as the sign said. Eventually with the managers help I convinced the man that if he did a good job I would tip him, if he continued to demand a tip I would not, the manager was right on my side and said “you are right” (love being right) so off we go, the horse handler did a great job so he got a handy tip, and hopefully learned a lesson!
From there I accosted another donkey and camel and dog and maybe even a cat and took a few pictures of Petra itself. I took a donkey ride back up the hill, after looking for the nicest looking donkey I ended up with what turned out to be a mule, but you would never know, it was so much more like a donkey, only that ‘Michael’ was strong enough to carry two people, according to the owner, who then wanted to sit on the mule behind me, ‘no thanks I have my bag’, ‘I’ll take your bag’, ‘no thanks, my husband would be very, very upset with this situation’....situation sorted, man back in his place and I’m not sharing my mule with anyone!
After another day of wandering around (this day had far more rest stops than yesterday, on account of it being my third day of walking what I estimate to be over 20km in a day and I’m stuffed). I get back to camp, lay down for a couple of hours then we headed off to ‘Petra by Night’, which was very cool, literally cool, but not as cold as I was expecting, three jumpers, two thermals was a little bit of overkill. Petra by Night is a candle show accompanied by live traditional music, the road down into the treasury is lit by candles in paper bags, there must have been thousands of candles to light up the over 2km path.
The following day we set out earlier than expected, Kyle and Gab got the breakfast time confused and started cooking an hour earlier than needed, I was in the shower before I looked at my watch properly to see I was up an hour earlier than needed, I had just heard the movement in the kitchen and started proceedings for getting sorted. After a short drive day and I have to say a warm drive day (Kim and I jumped in the cab with the heater instead of sitting in temperatures colder than the Arctic Circle in the back). We arrived at our bush camp on the Dead Sea to be greeted with every blow fly in the world and their cousins from other planets, we were not sure if it was the rubbish left laying about on the ground or the salt that they were after. Our camp at the dead sea was 380m below sea level, a very weird feeling to know that you are that low. Over 6km lower than the top of Mt Kilimanjaro! Swimming in the dead sea was awesome, but you cannot open your eyes, the dead sea is 10 times more salty than the red sea and is over 1/3 salt. I got one tiny drop up my nostril and it stung for hours, a couple of the guys jumped in head first and suffered the effects of the salt. After a while in the salt starts to burn your skin, so we probably only spent half and hour in. Because of the salt concentration you are so buoyant that it is impossible to swim underwater, you just bob around the surface, standing upright in deep water, you whole torso floats out of the water, very cool. Scientist estimate that the Dead sea will only exist for another 50 years as it is drying out, just imagine how buoyant you would be in the dead sea in another 20 years! After getting out came the wash off procedure, washing salt water off out of a jerry can filled up that morning in icy temperatures equals not so fun. I missed washing my neck and it was stinking for a couple of hours until I realised that the salt must have got stuck in the string of my necklace. That night we were all so salty that we stuck in our sleeping bags, every time you rubbed your hair or ear salt would fall out. This was only after we actually dried, the water was that salty that it took several hours for even our hair to dry. As clothing dried it set rock hard from the salt, then when it came into contact with damp air it got wet again, the salt must have dragged the moisture back out of the air, weird!
The next morning Kay and I decide that we need to gather up some dead sea mud, apparently it fetches over 20 euro per 100g, I say that if she gets some containers I will fill them, the situation ended up with me in my knickers and t-shirt standing in water up to my butt and with my arm into the water up to my shoulder, but it was worth it, the mud is awesome! (The people responsible for cleaning the camping grounds showers possibly had a different opinion on this a couple of days later). I didn’t bother washing off as I was looking forward to my shower in Damascus, this was not to be, time ran out (days are certainly getting shorter) so we pulled up at a service station to camp on dusk. This completed my weird camping sites for 2010, ski field car park, Auckland Sailing Club car park, Old Wharf, Wellington Swimming Pool, Christchurch Airport Long Term Car Park, Long Street, and the forecourt of a service station on the outskirts of Damascus. There was a half finished building there so we put up our tents on the tiles.
The following day we arrived at the campsite early enough for most people to dig out a weeks worth of dirty washing, (A low power line may have been harmed in the process, I say may...innocent until proven guilty) Ish and I set off in search of supplies for dinner, it turned out to be a great cook group shopping experience. Syrian people are really nice (Yeah we crossed the border into Syria the day before, just realised that I forgot to mention it) whilst searching the streets for meat we were given all sorts of food to try, in the butchery we were given free tea. Shopping for food in a new country is pretty hard when you are coping with yet another currency and not knowing the price of anything. We got the butcher to cut up 2.5kg of something that we assumed to be beef and it was going to cost almost all of the food budget, the man wouldn’t budge on the price, so we ended up with chicken. As we were walking the streets we had many people wanting their photo taken and not asking for money afterwards, we got some very cool photos with the fisheye lens.
Eventually we settle on mushroom soup, crispy chicken wraps with roasted veggies, warm egg potato and curry salad and veggie burgers. To follow this was date syrup dumplings with real cream...now these were a hit.
The following morning we headed into the old city of Damascus, and just spent the day wandering and shopping for random items, my birthday present, secret Santa gifts, jeans for Spencer, a scarf for me and some random food items, including 25 pancakes that a man absolutely refused to let us pay for! Syrian people are really very nice, right behind Sudanese people in the ranks for the nicest people in the world. After a visit to the central mosque, where I had to dress up in a robe that made me look like I was in the movie ‘Scream’ we headed towards the new city, nowhere near as interesting as the tiny alleyways of the old city.
That night most of us went for dinner at the Biggest Restaurant in the World in Damascus, at 6014 seats the Guinness Book of World Records says that it was the biggest in 2008, so not sure if it still is. It was pretty quiet on this night and we were certainly glad, there seemed to be very few processes in place, you could order off the menu or order a variety of other food not on the menu, I ordered the sweet and sour fish which was the same price as the lobster, go figure!...? It was really good food and we all received it, with the exception of Spencers entree which he didn’t need anyhow.
The following day we headed towards Palmyra, another ancient city. We wandered around there for a few hours that afternoon before setting up camp in a Bedouin tent, with a pot belly stove in the centre of the tent it was very warm, however the chimney system needed a bit of renovation as we were smoked out several times. During that day Gabs had looked at my pyramids memory card, (somewhere in the past couple of days I had lost another card of photos..., not happy jan) the one that corrupted and noted that it was doing ‘some strange stuff’, he tested the card reader and found he had issues with it too, Burbs was still adamant that it could not be the card reader and said he was so sure that he would even swap card readers, by that night Gabs had managed to recover my pyramid photos, what a great early birthday present!
The next day was my birthday, 31 already....crickey where have the last 10 years gone? We wandered up to the castle on the hill, a decent mornings climb, I took ‘donk-donk’ up (Donk-Donk is the newest addition to the gypsy wagon, he is the donkey of Shrek, what a great 31st birthday gift.....I am certain that I am the only 31 year old female to receive a donkey as a birthday present!). First song on the truck was ‘Happy Birthday to you’ then I started the process of forgetting that it was my birthday for most of the day. We arrived in Aleppo and booked into our ‘hotel’ we are all sleeping in a partitioned area just behind the bar. We went out for dinner for my birthday a traditional Syrian restaurant where we got to sit in a private room, most people went for the set menu where you choose your mains but receive soup, salad, flat bread and dips, there was way too much food left over, only downside to the night was that as a traditional restaurant there was no alcohol! So I ask where have the last ten years gone? Still not sure, but I know that in ten years I must have changed as ten years ago would have ran screaming out of any establishment which did not sell alcohol! Upon arriving back in the bar area of the hotel I figured something was a little strange as I see about 5 people huddling around and AK came over to take a photo of me standing on the steps and blocking my way up...hmm, I point out that it would be a bad photo as I am standing with straight arms, then I see a shoot of flames and sparkles coming from the group, a huge chocolate birthday cake with the best candles in the world, they should actually be classified as fireworks, shooting fire 2ft into the air!
Sorry to hear about that guy. Was there a nicer lady there, pretty big, South African? She was nice - husband owns a restaurant in town, next door to a good coffee bar.
ReplyDeleteWe got fined 25 TL for breaking our bike's mirror - damn thing fell over when I had it parked out the front of the Rock Valley Pansion (we stayed there too!!)