4 August 2006 - Donkeys and Goats...

Hello to all.

I'm currently in Petra, is my last night here tonight and then going to Amman in the morning, then Jerusalem on Sunday.

Tis very hot here, especially over at the site where I've been since 7am.

Hmmmm... so what's new?

Well I did absolutely nothing in Amman. The day I had there I spend in bed, intermittently sleeping, listening to Jordanian radio and trying to learn Arabic. My room had no windows which buggered up my body clock a bit meaning that sleep came easy at any time of day. I'm not that keen on Amman from what I've seen of it, it's all very modern but scruffy and the city itself is build over something like 20 hills, making it impossible to walk anywhere which is both irritating and expensive.

I ventured out in the evening as I thought I perhaps should eat something, went to the little place next door for some roast chicken. The people there all recognized me from the night before and were all very friendly, as were the people in the hotel, one of whom lent me a guide book on Israel.

On that note, I don't think I met a single Jordanian in Amman, everyone was Palestinian (the Palestinian community makes up 80% of the population).

The next day I took a mini bus down to Petra which took about 3 hours. On the way down I saw a sandstorm, like a mini tornado but, um, sandier. I was understandably excited at this, but this was not the case with my fellow passengers who looked at me with a mixture of bafflement and pity when they saw my excitement at what must be for them a very regular occurrence.

My hotel is Petra (actually Wadi Muss, the village a few mks away) is nice. I'm in a shared room, with 3 other beds.

it's called the Moses Spring Hotel- so called because it's built right next to a Biblical spring which supposedly preserved Moses when he was in the desert. And very tasty the water is too.

On my first night there was me, Mary- a Kiwi woman, Andy from Blackpool (who has just been accepted into the fire service but spent 4 years at Uni studying Roman archeology- bizarre) and a John who's a Maths teacher in Edinburgh. In fact, it turned out he was born and had lived in Inverness until he was 18- his Mum was from Forres, and his dad was of course from Elgin. In fact, his grandfather still lived there, in Bishopmill.

Surreal.

Petra it's self is amazing. A lot bigger than I expected- you have to walk from the entrance for about 30 mins before you get to the Treasury (the famous part)

I did some tomb exploring yesterday and today I climbed one of the "High Places"- The Monastery in my case, Trust me they really are high, the walk up this morning almost killed me, I think there's about 850 steps up, and then there's the up hill bits that don't involve steps. Meh.

It was just about worth it though. I lay down on a rock and fell asleep for an hour (after I had seen a bright blue gecko type creature).

The colours of the rocks are amazing, not just the "rose red" you associate but yellows and browns and pinks. There's also a lot more to see- from a theater to all the different tombs. The area is very mountainous (and sandy, grrrrr...) and often you'll look over and just see a random cave or door way carved into the side of a sheer rock face.

Oh, the title of this entry- where ever you look there's either donkeys or goats, you cant escape them they get everywhere. I'm so sick of saying no thanks (in Arabic ) to offers of camel, donkey or horse rides you wouldn't believe. Having said that, I did just take a horse back for the last 10 minutes of the walk because my legs were so sore. Twas a very nice horse as well

I best be off now, I want to go to the bakery before getting a taxi back to the hotel (its a bit removed from the village) I'm going to try and find somewhere that sells beer as well.....Mmmmm

Adieu For Now

Hannah

P.S - ISRAEL TRAVEL UPDATE

-The bad news

everybody out here thinks that I look like I'm wearing the hejab (headscarf) in my passport photo which isn't good, I really don't want the Israelis to think I'm Muslim.

The good news-

John (from Inverness) took almost exactly the same route as me into Israel a couple of weeks ago (Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Allenby Bridge) and said that the only hassle he got was trying to convince them not to stamp his passport (as he's going to Iran in a few weeks). Apparently they didn't even mention the Syrian visa/stamps though. Which is good.

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