Petra-fied!

As usual I have a radar for finding like-minded people doing the same stuff as me. I made some friends on the rooftop deck of my hostel and ironically they were headed on the same tour the following day to Petra and were in the same room as me. Now is when things got interesting…

We arrive to our bus at the pick-up point at 4 AM and are greeted by a driver who barely speaks English. We ask him if the bus goes in to Jordan, which I assumed it would not with the giant “Tourist Israel” words emblazoned across the side of the bus. Kind of a deal-breaker I think when it comes to border-crossings with a strenuous state. I managed to sleep through the Negev and West Bank before being woken up at a desert rest area outside the border crossing. Our tour guide brings us to the crossing and asks for our $65 USD for the border crossing out of Israel, I knew it would be this much so I agreed to it without a problem. I never see this guide again. We cross the border and then are greeted by a new guide who within the first 2 minutes asks us for the Jordanian border crossing fee. Surprise, surprise. We are already getting ripped off. I part with another $60 USD begrudgingly because what else am I going to do, walk back across the border to Israel?

We are now finally on our way to Petra with our third new guide, not the one demanding money, who also was never seen again until when we came back to the border. We stop at a rest area for a bathroom break and water. By the way there’s a racket in Jordan over water, even when essentially being held captive in the desert, we were not once offered a bottle of water free. Everything was 1 Dinar, or $2 USD. We are greeted by a cackling, bearded old man who is the visage of a sultan king. He takes me by the arm and leads me to a wall of head scarves, something he had clearly done before because quite a few of our tour were already rocking them. Of course, I did not want to offend a “Sultan,” so I bought one. At an upcharge of course. This was Jordan after all.

With head wrapped and bottles filled we made our way to Petra. It was just as an incredible site as I had hoped and, even with all the shady business this side of the border, was worth the hassle to see this wonder of the world. Once we spent our time winding our way through the canyons we were treated with the spectacular “Treasury” building. The site you see featured on cards around the world. Postcards don’t do the massive stone doors justice. After we were through with the doors, I opted to take a camel ride back to the town where lunch was waiting for us. I managed to ride the camel like some sort of rodeo champ. After lunch, and our not free drinks again, we made our way to the Bedouin Camp where we would spend the night.

The camp was like a little oasis in the sand, complete with a defunct plane, tents for us to sleep in, and a lantern lit pathway up to the top of a little hill where we could. After the sunset we were treated to dinner, complete with, you guessed it, not free water again. Naturally, some of us started to drink as a result of this. One of my new friends noticed the wall of hookahs near the entrance after a little while, and we treated ourselves to an authentic hookah experience in Jordan, under the stars, in a bedouin camp. Our group decided to go back up the little hill to watch the stars and try to take some starry night photos. It was a beautiful scene and worth the hike back up to the top.

We came back down to be greeted by some of the other members of our tour who invited us to sit down for a drink. 5 bottles of sweet wine later we were the best of pals. We called it night after drinking for what seemed to be hours, surprised we were the only ones still out enjoying this incredible evening.

6 hours and no hangover later, the group of us were the first to rise, shower, and start eating breakfast before our other compatriots graced us with their presence. Breakfast included FREE tang! an omelette station, fruit, tea, warm pita, and an assortment of other foods. Yes, free water was missing as usual.

We loaded into the back of a truck and departed on our dune adventure in Wadi Rum to search for Matt Damon. Spoiler Alert: We never found him. We did however find a hell of a lot of sand and some cool canyons.

After our “jeep” tour, we headed back towards the border, just beating a sandstorm while leaving the bedouin camp. We made a short pitstop in Aqaba for lunch and back on the buses we went for the border. We found our second tour guide waiting for us before the border patrol area and were greeted with the great news that this border crossing was free! You could feel the group breathe a collective sigh of relief.

We crossed the border to be met with the holiest of sights, a water fountain, with free water, that you could, just have. But shortly later our hopes were dashed by the fact that the bus that was supposed to take us was nowhere in sight. After some angry phone calls to the tour company and 20 minutes of waiting in the hot sun we were greeted by a bus driver who asked us where we were going, like we were the ones running the damn tour!

After grumpily dropping us off at the beach in Eilat he barked at us to get off the bus and to look for a white bus at the pickup time. With time at my advantage I tracked down a dive shop to take me out during the limited time I had. This would eventually be my down fall. After finding a shop and being taken on an incredible wreck dive, I returned to news that I missed the bus by 5-10 minutes and that they refused to wait for me. Oh well, I was done with that tour anyways. The only downside is that I missed my sunrise hike and trip to the Dead Sea that was scheduled for the morning.

Luckily, the divers that I went out with for the wreck were part of a dive hostel. I spent a cheap night in the hostel and got in another 2 dives in the morning. They weren’t as great as the wreck dive, but I got to see a pretty big octopus nestled into the corals. All-in-all it was all great as I originally hadn’t planned on being able to dive in Israel this trip. I made sure to fill up on free water before the 5 hour bus ride back to Tel Aviv to collect my clothing bag and catch a plane for Egypt the following day.

After another long travel day I am finally in Egypt, the last, and most exciting part of my trip. I am about to embark on a 7 day dive safari out in the Red Sea, potentially filled with encounters with thresher sharks, dolphins, and more.