Jordan - Petra, Dead Sea and Cockroaches!

The next day after desert safari we start our bus journey to Jordan, we have to get up at 4.30am, we arrive at the bus station and I am coming down the escalator with my bag, I go to get off and my good ole jandal gets stuck I pull my foot out and get off the escalator I turn around and the escalator grate is broken so there is about a 1cm hole there and this escalator is going fast – I look down at my toe and there is a cut and there is blood, I freak and start to bawl, I sit down and 5 guards work on getting my jandal out while 1 grabs me a serviette (which is the closest thing to a first aid kit!) he wraps it around my toe, I look at where I cut my toe and realise this thing hasn’t been cleaned since ancient Egyptian time, I panic and have a massive teary, luckily mum has a first aid kit and bandages my toe, I couldn’t believe after everything adventurous we did in the dirtiest place in the whole world I managed to jam my jandal and cut my toe on a bloody escalator!

Jordan
We get the bus to Taba in Sinai Egypt we then get a taxi to the Israel boarder crossing we then walk across the Israel boarder taxi from here to the Jordan boarder walk through the Jordan boarder and get a 2 hour taxi to Petra, our taxi driver is so nice he buys us drinks and stops to show us things and holds my hand – he’s a sweetie, we stop at a mountain top to see the view and drink tea with a few Jordanian men, after our Egyptian experience we have learnt not to accept anything from anyone, that nicest is only for a tip and do not respond when the locals so ‘Hi’ so mum gets all suss and thinks he wants something, we arrive at the hotel and no worries the taxi driver was just nice….we agree that we have a bit of a chip on our shoulder from Egypt and have to learn to be polite and accept that Jordanians are actually very kind people.

The hostel we stay at has a beautiful view over the mountains, a cheap traditional dinner and a backpackers feel. The next day we spent at Petra, it is awesome, we walk through a narrow valley of cliffs to a clearing where the treasury a temple carved into the rocks is, we then trek looking at other carved houses and temples along the way and met a NZ lady who is famous for marrying a Bedouin man (Bedouin tribes are nomads who live in caves and roam the deserts with their goats) she wrote a book about it, we brought a copy at her stall and she signed it, we then take a scary donkey ride up 800 very steep steps to the top of the mountains to see the Monastery another temple carved into the rocks.

That night we met Kevin a English guy who is a hard core traveller, he tell us about a cheap bus we can catch to Amman and a hostel there so the next day we catch this bus with him, we arrive at the hostel and Luwas the guy on reception is so friendly our room is 12 JD a night (24NZ) the glass in the window is broken so we cover it with the curtain sitting on the floor but Mum cracks when we see a cockroach in the bathroom – they don’t have them in NZ, she screams and Luwas comes up we search and search and cant find it, we go out for dinner and come back and out he comes again so mum goes and gets Luwas again we search and search and no roach I think Luwas thinks we are crazy bitches – he is right, mum refuses to use the loo.

We spend the next few days visiting the Roman Amphitheatre, the King’s Mosque and a mall. We also do a afternoon trip to the dead sea, it is a weird sensation to be floating in deep water, the water is very hot and kinda thick with salt, I have like 100 itchy bites so my dead sea experience is very painful, we pay 12JD ($24NZ!!) each to use the resort beach and swimming pools. Over the next 3 days at the hostel we kill 2 very big cockroaches EW!