We told almost everyone we talked to the even before -Guide Hisham, Driver Hisham, Ibrahim, and Atta our schedule for the next day; 8am-11am hike to the monastary, 11am Machmud pickup at the visitors center for a ride to Little Petra, 12pm head to Wadi Rum, 2-4 jeep ride around Wadi Rum, 6pm arrive in Aquaba at the hotel Barracuda. This is how our day actually went:
7am: Press snooze on the alarm clock
7:45: Head down for breakfast, only to find out breakfast is on the 4th floor
8:30: finish breakfast, head to room to brush teeth
8:50: hotel lobby to wait for a driver, driver tells us the hike to the Monastary is 45 minutes.
9:05 Arrive at the gates to Petra, start sprinting down the hill past all of the other tourists who are stopping to take photos.
9:45: Get to the bottom of the hill where we expected the Monastary to be, only to find out that the Monastary is actually a 45 minute hike from that point up a set of stone steps.
9:46: Pout
9:47: briefly toy with the idea of taking a “taxi” (donkey) up and back, but decide not to.
9:48: start making our way back up the hill to the visitor center.
11:10: arrive at visitors center where we see Penguin and Driver Hisham, but no Machmud.
11:25: Arrive at our hotel, where a different driver, Ramsi is waiting for us with a different car.
11:30: Head to Little Petra with Ramsi, and all of our luggage in the trunk.
11:50: Little Petra! Almost no other tourist, more caves, carvings, and lots of scampering up stairs. The cliffs are like a jungle gym, and a lot of fun to expore. We sit and have tea with a beduin woman.
1:00pm: Get to the car to drive back to Wadi Musa, before getting on the road to Wadi Rum
1:10 Adebe calls, and asks Ramsi to ask Ra for $100. What?
1:15 Adebe is on the phone with Ra, telling him that we have to pay for the guide that we didn't use. Ra is not impressed
1:20 Adebe says he is willing to fogive us, and will accept a ½ price discount, and only wants $50. Ra is not impressed.
1:22 Adebe tells Ramsi to pull over
1:23 Ra tells Ramsi to keep driving
1:29 Adebe calls, Ramsi pulls over again, and says he cannot drive any further unless we hand him the $50
1:30 We hand him the cash.
1:31-2:30 We are all very very quiet in the car ride to Wadi Rum
3:00 We park next to a Toyota pickup truck with bench seats and an awning over the truck bed
3:20 Running around barefoot across the red and yellow desert sand
3:45 Bouldering up a wall to peak into a cistern, obsessing what a great place this would be to go rock climbing.
4:20 Sitting on top of a rock formation drinking beduin coffee as the sun sets. Seriously awesome.
5:00 Back in the car with Ramsi playing kareoke sing along to “lady in red” “everything I do I do it for you” “I will always love you” and other movie hits from 2, 3, and 4 decades ago that he had on his MP3 player
7:00 Aqaba. Does anybody know where the hotel is?
7:05 The police officer does not know.
7:10 The guy at the restaurant does not know
7:12 Call Ibrahim, and he knows where it is, but Ramsi is discouraged by how far out of town it is.
7:15 All of us stop to have our first meal since breakfast, my legs are trembling I'm so tired.
7:20 I discover that the toilet is a hole in the floor with two places to put your feet.
8:20 FINALLY find Hotel Barricuda after driving 18km, and making 3 u-turns
8:21 Ramsi gives back the $50 we gave him earlier in the day for Adebe. We are still mystified.
8:40 Our showers are cold and there is no Wifi
9:00 We ask for glasses so we can drink our bottle of wine
9:40 Hotel staff brings us 2 buckets of ice, and 4 frosty cold mugs. Clearly not wine drinkers.
10:30 Bed faceplant.
* As a side note, I will say that Beduins have an interesting sense of humor. My word of advice is, if one asks you if you want him to put some makeup on you, I would decline unless you want to look like a clown
Heh! 9:46.
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