Our tour took us through the desert in a pickup truck. All we had to do was sit in the back and admire the views. At first it was a little bit disorienting because I literally have never sat in the back of a pickup truck before. I’d seen it many times in movies and what not, but that was it – especially from news clips where insurgents in Iraq or Afghanistan would do it, so it was pretty hard to not compare my experience with that.

Along the way, we stopped by some old carvings on the rocks (so called petroglypths) from the Thamud, an ancient civilization that existed around 8th century BCE.

We hiked around the desert a little bit.

Then we stayed in the desert for the sunset. I normally don’t pay attention to the sunset, but it was pretty amazing to see how fast the sun actually set.

Once the sun touched the horizon, 30 seconds later, it was gone.

For dinner, the staff at the camp prepared a feast for us – zarb, they called it. It’s similar to the chicken/lamb on rice meals we had in the previous days, but this one was cooked underground inside a barrel. This was the best meal in Jordan by far!

That night, we stayed in a camp in the desert. The best part about it was being able to see stars without all the light pollution in the city, and hanging out with the rest of the tour group around a campfire.

The worst part of it was the actual camping. There was some running water, but no hot water. To make it worse, we had to leave the next morning at 04:00 because we had a couple hours drive back through the Israeli border in time before it closed (what kind of border crossing closes during the day?).

The desert was our last destination in Jordan, before we went back into Israel/Palestine (not to take sides here…), to visit the Dead Sea and Tel Aviv.

More photos of Wadi Rum here

I always thought that Petra was just a single structure – the same one that gets shown everywhere, but that structure is just The Treasury that’s a part of an entire city built in the rocks.

From the entrance, we walked 30 minutes through a winding gorge formed by a fault line that tectonic forces split apart until we reached The Treasury. Stray dogs followed us every step of the way hoping for scraps of food. Leaving at 6:00 didn’t help because the only people that the dogs could beg from was us.

We arrived so early we were practically the only people there. We admired Petra on our own without the large crowds of tourists everywhere. We took our time walking up to it, all around it, up the slope to get a better view (nobody is allowed inside it though). We did all of this before the crowds showed up.

Petra was the capital of a kingdom of the Nabataean, a group of nomadic Arabs who established the city as a major trading hub. The Nabataeans constructed massive structures by carving it all out of the sandstone. Although it’s called The Treasury, the building is believed to have been the mausoleum of the Nabataean King Aretas IV.

The area around Petra is also home to the Bedouin people, a group of nomadic Arab people who inhabit the desert regions in northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. In the modern times, many have abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and many Bedouin around Petra work as tour guides, offer camel rides, among other things. One of the Bedouin people there is actually the descendent of a woman from New Zealand who married a Bedouin man and wrote about it, called Married to a Bedouin.

The area is over 250 square kilometers, something I totally didn’t expect (because I totally did not do my research before I went). I’m not too big on hiking and I was totally not prepared for a hike that day – I would have totally brought more water, and more food along with me that day. Despite that, I hiked up the 900 or so steps to the monastery anyway, while getting hassled by vendors trying to sell me their junk. Temperature-wise, the temperature shot up to a whopping 20 degrees Celsius from the 0 degrees Celsius just two days before. My body did not like that.

We spent about 8 hours in Petra, walking along the rock faces, seeing the ancient ruins, hiking up the hill, but if I had more energy I totally would have hiked up the other trials for even better views of the area.

For dinner we had mansaf, probably the national dish of Jordan. It’s a delicious dish made with lamb and rice dish mixed with a yogurt sauce! This tasted even better than the chicken rice dish we had the day before. I had no idea that lamb and yogurt was such a great combination. It was a great meal to refuel after such a long day.

More photos of Petra here