Petrafied

Being one of the modern 7 wonders of the world, made famous by Steven Spielberg in the third installment of Indiana Jones and perhaps even more famous by Karl Pilkington in season one of "An Idiot Abroad," Petra had a whole lot to live up to, and it really did. We got to the town of Wadi Mousa early on Saturday morning, found a hostel and got straight to the ancient sight. Petra was built by the Nabateans around 2400 years ago and most of what is still visible today was originally tombs carved out of the sandstone cliffs. We spent the first day trying to see all the major points of the vast landscape and then got an early start on the second day walking off the main trails getting away from the busloads of Japanese and American tourists and within a minute you are all alone walking amongst tombs and mountains with incredible views of the valley shifting in different shades of red, orange and yellow. Petra may very well be the most beautiful place I have ever seen and who can put a price on seeing that... Well somebody did and apparantly it is 50 Jordanian Dinars (500 kr) for one day, however a two-day pass is only 55 JD so taking an extra day is well worth it. I could have spent weeks walking around the unbelievable scenery but we decided to get a move on and made our next stop the Wadi Rum desert. Once again this required an early start as we first got a bus to the desert entrance and then spent the whole day being driven around the red sand landscape in a 4x4. After that we got to our Bedouin tent-camp, watched the sunset and had a huge dinner. It gets pretty cold at night around these parts, but seeing all the stars and the fullmoon in absolute silence made the freezing sleep worth it. The following morning we got a taxi to the nearby town of Aqaba, where we saw what was once the world's tallest freestanding flagpole (today in second place at 130m high with the same flag dimensions as the flag in Amman, the tallest flagpole is located in Turkmenistan so this should be the last I write about it for a while at least.) I also managed to complete my trio of Med, Dead and Red for the trip by taking a quick dip in the waters off the Aqaba coast. Tomorrow we hope to get the ferry across these same waters and with any luck finally reach Egypt and the African continent.