Petra and the adventure to Cairo

After the Indian visa fiasco I wrote about previously (read the Jerusalem post down below first!), Maren and I had to figure out where we would go next. Since it was Thursday evening and we had a flight from Cairo to Mumbai on Monday, we figured we would have to go straight to Cairo. There was one complication: in order to travel by land from Israel to Egypt, you must get your visa in advance. All other methods of crossing you get your visa on arrival. Both Egyptian visa offices in Israel are closed on Fridays and Saturdays. We had no intention of staying in Israel any longer, so we caught an overnight bus from Tel Aviv to Eilat, at the southernmost tip of Israel next to the border with Jordan. We met three Argentinean girls when we got off the bus heading for the same place as us. The five of us taxied the short distance to the Jordanian border where we had to sit around for a couple of hours until the border opened at 8 AM. We crossed, caught another taxi to the nearest town of Aqaba, and then found a mini-bus heading north. There are few busses running on Fridays, so we had to wait another hour or two for the bus to fill up before it left. There was one American guy on the bus named Drew who has spent the last year studying Arabic in Damascus. Our group (now 6) spent two hours on the bus, and arrived in the town of Wadi Mousa in the afternoon. Along the way, I could tell we were in a very different land. There was desert in every direction, though not the sand dune type. It was more of a barren, dirty, rocky wasteland. We passed small villages and even some Bedouin people, the nomads of Jordan’s deserts. Wadi Mousa is the tourist town that has been built around the entrance to Petra, the most famous sight in Jordan. We all walked to a hostel we had read about and settled in. The Argentinean girls went straight to sleep. Even though Maren and I were exhausted, and despite the temperature still in the high 30s, we decided to head to Petra for the rest of the afternoon.



Petra is the site of an ancient civilization of people called Naritians (sp?). These were Semitic people that built a town in and around a massive river gorge sometime around 100 or 200 BC. Various groups of other people came through, and the Romans eventually annexed the town a few hundred years later. But, mostly due to some devastating earthquakes, the town was abandoned around 600 AD. The main remnants of the town are the carvings and tombs in the sandstone walls of the gorge. Petra is a huge site which could take a week to fully explore. We met up with Drew at the ticket office, and he joined us for most of the afternoon. As we began to walk in, we saw some of the carvings and tombs along the main road and began to realize how incredible this place was. It was very expensive to enter, 33 Jordanian dinars (nearly 50 bucks!) which is insanely high by 3rd world country standards. We paid 38 JD to get a 2 day pass and after all that we saw, I can easily say it was worth every cent. We entered the very narrow canyon with enormous sandstone walls on both sides of us. There were various geometric carvings all along the ‘road’ into the center of Petra. After awhile, you turn a corner and see between the canyon walls in front of you the incredible picture-postcard view of The Treasury. The Treasury is the most famous and most photographed icon of Jordan. It is a gigantic wall carving that, through its protected location in the canyon, has remained nearly unchanged after two thousand years. You can go inside the huge door at the base to see the royal tombs, but it is not particularly interesting (neither are the insides of most of the thousands of tombs carved into the rock around Petra). The view from the outside, however, is absolutely stunning.


Past The Treasury, the canyon opens up a bit, and there are numerous tombs and smaller rock carvings, as well as quite a few Roman ruins, including a large theater. Drew continued on his own, while Maren and I decided to do a nearby hike. We started up the rock cut stairway, which led to switchbacks up the side of the canyon. Forty-five minutes (and a few liters of water) later, we arrived at the High Place of Sacrifice. From the top, we had a 360 degree view of the surrounding area, including much of Petra. We laid down on the smooth stones and enjoyed the cool breeze, only to find ourselves waking up a half hour later;) Afterwards, we trekked back into town, exhausted, and ate a big pizza for dinner.


The second day in Petra was even more incredible than the first. At the entrance, we took a seldom used and somewhat treacherous alternate path we had read about. We dropped into a dried riverbed and followed it around the main path through Petra. Along the way, we had to scramble up and down former waterfalls and squeeze through narrow sandstone walls. Fortunately it didn’t rain; we read that we would have to find a way out in a hurry if we felt even a few drops because flashfloods could be on the way. The path took a couple of hours, and we only passed one other person, a Bedouin-looking guy on a donkey. We finally exited near the back of Petra and walked through Roman ruins. We continued on until we reached the base of our hike. There is a popular route filled with tourists (and donkeys) leading up to the Monastery. The hike took a bit over an hour, until we turned a corner and were faced with the incredible stone carving. The Monastery is, in my opinion, even more impressive than the Treasury. It is larger, more intricate, and in perfect condition. We hiked still further up until the trail split. We took both paths and were rewarded with some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. The view was of the incredible canyons, mountains, and gorges that stretch for a hundred kilometers in nearly all directions. And behind us down below was the beautiful Monastery. We rested for a long time and enjoyed the views from both peaks. Maren and I took over 500 pictures in our two days in Petra, and as incredible as they are, I am not sure they do it justice. The natural beauty of the surroundings, the amazing tombs and stone carvings, and our two days of trekking and climbing make Petra one of the most memorable experiences of my travels (so far;).


It took about three hours to get all the way back to our hostel. They were putting on a BBQ on the rooftop which we happily joined. We met a couple of English guys, a father and son, who were planning on going to Cairo the next day, so we joined forces. We took a shared taxi in the morning from Petra to the ferry terminal just outside of Aqaba. We chose to take a ferry to Egypt to avoid paying the expensive Israeli ‘departure tax’ again (we had just paid it two days earlier). Also because you have to get a visa ahead of time to cross the land border from Israel to Egypt, which could take some time. Instead, we could skip going back to Israel by taking the ferry from Aqaba to Nuwaiba on the east coast of Sinai Egypt. We arrived in plenty of time at the ferry terminal, but they didn’t take credit cards for the expensive ferry tickets. No one could tell us the exact price beforehand, so we had decided to wait to withdraw money, but there was not a single ATM at the terminal. I had to go back into town in Aqaba to get money. The taxis at the ferry terminal wanted 12 JD (13 euros!) for the return ride to the nearest ATM. I left the terminal, walked along the road, found my own taxi, and bargained the driver down to 1 JD to take me into town. He dropped me off at an ATM which didn’t take my card. I then proceeded to walk through the entire town of Aqaba, stopping at 5 different ATMs, none of which worked! I was sure Maren was getting very nervous back at the ferry terminal with our luggage. After over an hour of searching, the 6th ATM I found miraculously worked. I caught a mini-bus back to the ferry terminal for ½ JD. Maren was incredibly relieved to see me, nearly two hours from when I left, and less than half an hour before the ferry’s departure time. We ran to buy our tickets and made our way onto the ferry.


In spite of our rush to board the 1:00 ferry, the boat sat around until nearly 4:00 when we finally left! We couldn’t go outside, so the trip was pretty miserable. We arrived in Nuwaiba, along with the two English guys, in the evening and found there were no more busses going to Cairo. We talked to several people, walked to the empty bus station, tried to bargain with the taxi drivers, and finally decided to take a ‘mini-bus,’ just a van turned taxi-on-demand. This was the sketchiest looking ‘taxi’ I have ever taken in my life. It appeared to be already full, yet they said they would squeeze us in the back. The luggage rack on top was already filled, but they said they would put ours on top of the other luggage! We were incredibly skeptical of this whole situation, particularly when one guy said the trip would take 3 hours. But the price was so cheap (about 8 or 9 euros each) compared to a normal taxi (25-30 euros each) that we eventually decided to go for it. Once we got in, we drove around the town for another hour looking for even more passengers to completely fill the van! We crammed three more guys in (I think there were 13 people total now) and finally hit the road. I say ‘road,’ but the road across the Sinai Peninsula was the sorriest excuse for a paved road I have ever seen. There were huge portions of the road missing all over the place. There were sections we had to come to a complete stop to figure out a way around the massive potholes. We had to drive on the sand around the road more than a few times. Considering how terrible the quality of the van was and how much weight it was carrying, we probably averaged under 20 km/h! By the time the road began to improve, however, we began to fear for our lives as the driver had a lead foot. We arrived in Cairo 7 or 8 hours after we left, after 1 o’clock in the morning!


The van, predictably, did not even drop us off in Cairo proper. The driver dumped us out in a crowded, dirty market underneath an overpass on the outskirts of the city. It took a long time just to figure out where the hell we were. The taxis wanted huge sums of money to take us into the city (double or triple the price we just paid to get there!), but we got really lucky and found a nice Egyptian guy who was heading into the city himself. I thought he might be trying to scam us as we piled into another mini-bus. We got dropped off on the side of the freeway in the middle of nowhere, then waited for another mini-bus which took us, to my disbelief, to downtown Cairo! We left our English friends and, after even more confusion, found the hostel we had reserved. After much-needed showers from all the dirt and sweat of our journey, and a ‘welcome tea,’ we made it to sleep around 4:30 AM.

Also, for those that didn't see on Facebook, I found out while we were in Jerusalem that I have been accepted into the University of Hamburg!  I will be starting a 2 year Master's program in Political Science, Philosophy, and Economics in the fall!  Very exciting!!

We are currently in Veranasi, India and leave for Thailand at the end of the week.  Will write about Cairo and India ASAP!  And pictures are coming soon, I promise!