THURSDAY 7/12/12

PETRA AT NIGHT

We booked a car online last night and picked it up this morning. Little stick shift gas saver. Good enough for us. Took off towards Petra. The driving in the city is pretty hectic but nothing out of this world. The roads are not as good as Israel but there not the worse we've ever been on. So the drive was uneventful, aside from a couple of wrong turns and recalculating of the GPS and we were back on track.

 



The previous night Mustafa had booked us a room at the Edom hotel, which was only a 5 min. walking distance to Petra. The hotel was not a dump but barely cleared the 3 star mark. We checked in and went straight to the Petra Visitors Center to get our tickets for the Petra at night tour. On the way there I bought a keffiyeh, a traditional Arab head covering for men, we knew that the following day was going to be hot, so we got prepared.

After that we went to Musa's spring or for you non-Arabic speakers, Moses' spring. The supposed spot where Moses hit the rock and water came out of it for the Israelites. It was interesting to see several people come with their containers and fill them with the water from this spot. The water runs through some exposed water channels and feeds the rest of Wadi Musa or Valley of Moses. Interesting little spot. After that we went back to the hotel to catch a little nap before the Petra night tour.

 

The night tour of Petra is pretty amazing. The tour only takes you to the Treasury, the most popular building in Petra but the walk down makes the anticipation almost unbearable, specially if you still haven't tour it at all, like us. So the experience is very cool. They light up the path all the way to the Treasury and the Treasury itself only with candles. It sets up the scene for the acoustic musical experience by two Bedouin men. We can't wait to see Petra tomorrow.