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Im sorry that there has been so many updates but having free internet is something that you can not turn down. Anyway I feel in India we wont have much time/opportunity to write much. Please let us know if you dont want to recieve these updates and we can take your name off the list.
On Thursday we had to wake up really early and head to the bus station to be there by 6am. The bus ride was about 3.5 hours, so not bad I thought. We basically just drove through desert which is not just sand, in fact around here it is mainly rolling hills of barren rocks and sporadic plants. Nothing really can be grown and no one really lives there as it is really difficult to survive. Its hard to explain.
Once we got to Petra we immediately bought tickets and walked on in, the tickets cost 21 Dinar, so $30, quite expensive I thought. Petra is about 5km from one end to the other. You start out walking through Siq, which is basically 2 cliffs that are a few meters apart and 50 or more meters deep. It was amazing!!! If you can remember the 2nd Indiana Jones when he is being chased through the narrow gorge to the main temple with the cup of christ in it. On both sides of the cliffs the people cut out water ducts at about chest height, all the way through the Siq.
After about 1km you come out at the above picture, which is called the Treasury. It is stunning as you can just start to see it through the narrow cliffs and then it appears in full splendor. Amy and I both liked the little cut foot holes up each side which they must of used for climbing to their scaffolding??? or whatever they used to walk on while they carved out the stone. It was made around 1BC they said, and it would of just been a sight to see them make it. Inside are just huge square rooms that are carved out of the mountain/cliff. From here there are plenty of kids selling things, and people saying take a camel or donkey ride as it will take you 3 hours to get to Monastery, which is considered the second most famous thing at Petra after the Treasury. So of course Amy and I were challenged to make it faster as we figured they were just saying that to make you pay for a ride. We took our time and looked at all the royal tombs, the servants houses, etc.... Of course everything is cut into the cliffs, some were as high as 30 stories we estimated.
The Romans came and took over the area during the 300 year rule of Jordan and built a theater, a church, a market and of course roads!! Only the theater was built into the cliffs, the rest were free-standing. Then we got to the bottom of a gorge where there were 800 plus stairs cut into the rock used to reach the Monastery. The donkeys flied up the stairs with the lazy tourist but Amy and I wanted to see if we could make it up in decent time. They told us an hour, the donkey takes 20 minutes they said, we took 40 minutes but no donkeys passed us even though one was right behind us for the last 15 minutes it seemed.
By the time we got there we were nice and tired and ready from food for the first time in a long time. A snickers and a flake (made in NZ) later we felt ready to head back down. The Monastery was of course really cool with it again being huge and unbelievable as to how they could build it. It was used as a church and pilgrimage place back around Jesus's time.
The we walked back over to the main area where we preceded to hike up another hill which took about 30 minutes this time. It had a fantastic view over Petra and it was called High Sacrifice Place. At the top I was trying to convince Amy that the square deep whole was there hot tub and there long shallow one was there swimming pool. But she corrected me and said the hot tub was to store the blood and the other one to make the sacrifice. We sat there a while and enjoyed the view.
Then we headed down and slowly out to the front again. By the time we got to the end it had been about 6 hours and the bus was going to leave in an hour. We stocked up on water and got on the bus. It seemed to take much longer to get back to Amman than going there. We got back into the hostel around 9:30 after grabbing a little food to see how that went. A long day!!
Today we just packed up and then toured around the city for a few hours. Amman doesnt have much, just an old Roman theater, some old Roman ruins on top of a hill and a few Mosques. Now we are about to go get a Taxi to the bus station and then a bus to the airport. We should get there around 6pm and our flight leaves at 8pm. We got a text from Woody saying that he and Tomo are on the way!! We arrive into New Delhi around 4am, so not a good night for sleep.
I promise we are trying out best to upload photos, but no cigar as yet. We have taken about 350 photos in the first week we have been away. So friends at home expect a 2500 photo slide show when we are back! Miss you all,
Simon and Amy
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