Leaving the desert early

Leaving the desert early

Wadi Musa, Jordan, Asia

Last night was by far the worst sleep I have had so far. It was absolutely freezing in the desert, and sleeping in a tent didn’t help at all. I made good use of my base layers that I brought with me, but that didn’t help my nose and ears from almost freezing off. I hardly slept at all through the night so I decided I might as well get out of bed at 6am and go watch the sunrise. I climbed up on top of the same rock that I had watched the sunset from, and this was much more impressive. The sunrise was beautiful, even though I was shivering due to my core temperature dropping so much during the night!

We all had breakfast at the camp. It was their traditional breakfast. It consisted of pitas, a big naan bread kind of thing, some vegetables, yogurt, spices and jams. It was pretty good. We left the camp at 8am and took a jeep ride through the desert. This was also absolutely freezing. We were all much less interested in seeing the sights, and just wanted to get back to Wadi Rum Village where we could get out of the back of the jeep.

When we got to the village, a taxi was already waiting for Joey, Liz and me. We hopped in and headed out of Wadi Rum and toward Petra. I really enjoyed my time in Wadi Rum, but I am happy that I decided not to stay another night. One night was enough of that for me. We had a pretty good hour-plus ride to Petra and our driver spoke English very well. He was trying to be our tour guide as well and may have persuaded the girls to hire him as their driver all day on Sunday to bring them up to Amman.

Since I was meant to be staying in Wadi Rum for tonight as well, I didn’t have a hotel or hostel booked for the night in Wadi Musa (at Petra). I had the taxi driver drop me off at Rocky Mountain Hotel where I will be staying for the next three nights, in the hopes that I could just add another night to my booking. Unfortunately they were fully booked so they recommended I come down to Al Rashid Hotel. It’s just down the street and right around the same price (£25) for the night. I grabbed my bag and walked down the road about ten minutes to find my new hotel for the night. It is very nice! For this money I couldn’t ask for anything more.

I laid down to take a little nap and didn’t wake up until 2:30pm. I guess I really needed some rest after last night. I also decided that since I’ve already missed most of today, there is no point in going to Petra today. I’m going to head there tomorrow and get a three day pass so I have plenty of time to explore everything. I spent most of the day just relaxing in the hotel, watching TV and checked out the village of Wadi Musa. There’s not much to it besides hotels and corner shops, but tomorrow I’ll get to see the real reason why everyone flocks here. Bring on Petra!

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