Jordan : Day 3 & 4 - Petra Foooooooood & Day 5 in Amman

We were all brain dead after a day of starvation. Damon played with his phone and Victor wrote in his journal as we waited hungrily for our (tourist priced) food.

The omnipresent hummus and pitta bread. I got so addicted to this and now have it regularly in London.

 The spread!

That local dish again whose name I've forgotten but with chicken instead of goat this time...

 
Mixed grill.

This was my typical breakfast in Jordan because I was too scared to eat the raw salads they had out everyday. Damon had it though and was fine luckily. Eggs with cheese in pitta bread!

 The breakfast area had a flag of Malaysia among others!!!

On our last day, we tried this place out for lunch on the recommendation of the hotel we stayed at.

You know it's alright when you see a tripadvisor sign!

Mmmmm meat. Victor and I had been gagging for some lamb kebab all throughout the trip so we thought we were finally going to get our wish.

Coke in Arabic is still Arabic. Oh yeah the waiter took a liking to me and flirted with me by trying to teach me Arabic haha.

Damon's awesome meal.....

Me and Victor chose poorly.... sigh... stupid chicken!

Last day in Amman was spent eating and chilling out. We went to Rainbow Street which is where all the cafes are and just hung out. First up was a snack at this famous falafel shop. They had heaps of photos of the King and Queen (she's the gorgeous Queen Rania). I assumed they had eaten there previously?

It was pretty good. I think it was 50 p or something like that.

I wanted to tick shisha off my list so we went to a cafe that had it (well not hard as every second shop got it). We also got some food but I forgot to take photos of them.

See those bottles of water? Every table had them and they forced us to pay for them at the end even though we didn't touch them. Apparently it was non-refundable. We decided not to quibble as we needed water anyway for the flight.

Dude setting up my mint and berry shisha.

 Trying to blow smoke rings... failed.

 Just call me an opium addict.

Bye Jordan. It was fun. Next up, Majorca.

Jordan : Day 3 & 4 - Petra Monastery

We had pretty much done everything we wanted to in Petra so we left the Monastery for the last day. It is the furthest away from the entrance and involved a hike up a mountain of more than 800 rock-cut steps to get to it so many (lazy) people give it a miss.

There were some sights along the way such as the Lion Triclinium, so called because of the large lions (but severely weathered) carved into the rock on either side of the entrance. The entrance consists of an odd keyhole-shaped crack in the rock due to the weathering of the original separate doorway and window. 

 Amazing views of the rocky mountains throughout the jaunt.

 We came to a resting spot and the dude manning the souvenir shop got quite mad at us for not buying anything and started sprouting about how they are going to survive if we don't spend money.

Spot the donkey in the photo. No not Damon or Victor. bahahahahahaha

I was a bag lady all day. I got so sick of the biscuits I started giving them to the stallkeepers. They must communicate with each other because i would walk past one stall, give them some biscuits and by the time I got to the next stall they knew to ask me for food!

 We rounded a corner and all of a sudden, we had arrived at the Monastery. It was virtually deserted due to the effort it takes to get to it as well as the fact that it was just the start of the tourist season.

 No humans!!!!!!!! YES.

The Monastery is the largest of all the monuments in Petra. The doorway alone measures 8 m in height.  It was probably a temple but there are arguments that it was an unfinished royal tomb. The temple facade has been carved deeply into a shoulder of the mountain to give a large courtyard in front.   

 That's my silhouette by the way.

Jordan: Day 3 & 4 - Petra The City of Petra & High Sacrificial Place

After the Royal Tombs, we followed this pathway and it led us to the Colonnaded Street, the entrance to the ancient City of Petra. 

 Victor and Damon went off to explore one of the temple ruins while i sat at the entrance being lazy ha.

 The gate you can see in the middle of this photo is the Temenos Gate, the entrance to the sacred precinct of Qasr el-Bint.

 There were a few other ruins and sights in the old city but i didn't bother taking photos. We then headed off to the museum which was situated high up in the hill for some weird reason.

It did give us a good view of the old City and the Royal Tombs though so definitely worth the climb.

The rock walls had the most amazing shades of purples and it kept me fascinated for a while.

View of the Royal Tombs spread out in front of us

 After that, we (ok it was me) decided to veer off the path and go left rather than back down to where we came from. The view was amazing.

Can you see one of the Bedouin dudes taking a rest?

Then we spotted his dead donkey in the valley... we thought it probably slipped and fell from where we were but it died a very clean death so probably not.

 It wasn't long before we were lost and had no idea which way to go. It didn't help that we managed to go off course to a track where there was absolutely no one around. We finally came to a drinks stall and asked the lady for direction and she pointed in a general direction but then offered us a donkey ride We may have been tired and panicky but we still refused to pay for a donkey so we trudged on resolutely.

It was getting late in the day and we hadn't eaten all day either apart from the biscuits so I was having these awful images of having to spend the night huddled together with two smelly boys in the freezing and barren desert.

But just as I was about to lose hope, we got to where we wanted - High Place of Sacrificial!!! This is the place where as the name suggests, the place the ancient people would come to offer up sacrifices to God.

Damon was exhausted so he took a breather while Victor and I climbed the last few steps to check the place out.

Doesn't this look like something out of an end of the world scene?

Victor was ecstatic that we were lost no more... we were lost but now we were found.

The High Sacrificial Place..... it was a tad anti-climatic to be honest and we still aren't sure if we actually were looking at the right thing.

 It was so late that the couple tending the drinks stall next to the place shut up shop after selling Damon a bottle of water and walked back down the mountain with their trusty donkey.

We then started our descent to the other side of the mountain which was meant to take us back to the Siq. It was around 5 pm by then and all the souvenir stalls have been abandoned by their keepers. All the wares were left there though which was weird. 

We didn't steal anything but I got Victor to pretend like he did.

Donkey poo.....

 Yeaaaaah homeward bound!

The path led us to the Street of Facades!!!! Huge sigh of relief all round... after wandering in the wilderness for 4 hours rather than 40 years haha.