10-30 (Sunday) Petra

10-29 (Sat)

We went to Wadi Rum on the local bus Friday morning. We bounced along and then raced up and down the mountain roads for an hour and a half.

Our guide met us at the Visitor’s Center and took us to his village where he promptly parked us in a “house/room” where some children brought us tea. Barbara fell in love with a four year boy who entertained us. He would be on meds for ADD in the States - he was such a little pill but all good stuff and so cute.

We finally met another couple, Simon and Amelia, from France who were going to be with us in our van to tour the desert. First we were taken to a “grocery store” to buy our lunch. That was a joke, there was nothing to buy. I bought potato chips and Barbara bought a candy bar and a Fanta. After that lovely purchase it was off to the desert.

We finally got to our camp and unloaded our stuff into our tent. I took a walk and when I got back I found that Barbara had moved us to a nicer better tent.

The sun going down in Wadi Rum was a lovely site. Everyone took pictures. We had dinner with 6 from France, 3 from Switzerland and 2 from New Zealand.

We weren’t too impressed with the bathroom facilities, by that I mean one was a squat and the other was a toilet with the seat half broken.

As soon as the sun went down it was pitch black. You couldn’t see you hand in front of your face. Barbara left the dinner area first and I returned with he 2 from New Zealand. When I got back to the tent I had to go to the bathroom but I didn’t want to go to the one they provided so I just stepped outside the tent and went there. By 7:00 and we were both in bed.. We woke up at 10:00 and both of us had to go to the bathroom so once again we stepped outside the tent. Barbara squatted down and couldn’t get up, I was trying to pull her and I didn’t have the strength to get her up because I was laughing so hard so she fell on her knees in the sand. I finally got her up. We found out at breakfast that everyone heard us.

Barbara is writing . . .
About the bathroom - if we thought the smell in that train bathroom was the worst, we were wrong!! Dinner in the desert was very interesting. While our group was in the dining tent getting acquainted the Muslim cook came to tell us to come see the chicken being cooked. It was in the sand all covered up in a big round metal container being cooked by the stones that we saw in a fire earlier. The cook came in the dining tent after we were finished eating (he sat and ate with the French family) without his head turban and robe - Nancy and I didn’t recognize him he looked so different in regular clothes. It was so cold sleeping Nancy had to sleep with her fleece on and hood up.

There was a camel ‘crying’ in the village we were in waiting for the bus back to Petra. I went over and talked gently to it and started petting it. It shut right up and even kissed me - found out it was 1 year old and his mother died 1 month ago so he was crying for her. Okay, it’s 10:00 and you all know what that means……………..nighty nite