Journey to Jordan

We crossed the Jordanian border (by foot!) into Aqaba - essentially the middle of the desert with absolutely nothing around you. Lucky for us our timing was perfect and two Australian guys were crossing the border the opposite way, so there was an empty cab there waiting for us. Seeing as there weren't any other cabs, busses or trains available and that we were in the middle of the uninhabited desert, we didn't have much bargaining room on the taxi price and paid more than double what the cost should have been - I can thank Tania for her (lack of) bartering skills for that one! lol :P

Okay, so after a two-hour drive (and some off-roading in the desert as the cab driver was attempting to play tour guide) we arrived in Petra. At one point the cab actually broke down and I thought we were about to be stranded, but aside from being a cab driver and a tour guide, our driver was part mechanic and managed to get the car running again. The next day we headed out for Petra - the location where Harrison Ford finally found the Holy Grail in the film Indiana Jones and the last Crusade. It looked cool in the movie and it certainly didn't disappoint in person! Basically it's a bunch of buildings (a treasury, a monastery and a couple others) carved into the rock mountains in the desert. To think that people actually chipped away at the rock, piece by piece, to slowly shape a building is incredible. It was awfully hot and humid and the trek to the top to see the monastery is 6 kilometres, so we wimped out and rented a couple of mules to complete the journey. Petra alone was definitely worth the 17-hour flight!

To complete our stay in Jordan, we headed north to spend a day in Amman, the capital. To add to my ever-increasing back of multicultural tattoos, we hunted down a tattoo parlour to get my latest work of art. This was incredibly difficult as it was Ramadan, but thankfully an old friend of mine that I went to grad school in Nebraska with, Cody, is currently living in Amman doing forensic research, so he managed to locate someone who would do the tattoo on the holiday. Thanks Cody! We also got a kick out of the fact that the tattoo artist's name was Jihad, lol

All in all, a spectacular trip!

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• petra
• jordan
• al-kazneh
• treasury
• monastery
• middle
• east
• desert
• indiana
• jones
• holy
• grail

[osama8686]

i don't think you have seen any thing of Jordan what is those places there is much more cooler places than those and WTF "taxi driver"!!!!!!!

[yhusban]

if u ever want to visit Jordan u should know a local to take you out and show u around not a cab driver! let me know if ur visiting again cheers!

[ibnfalasteen63]

Nice Vid.I hope you enjoyed your stay in Jordan

[deathfromafar0317]

Two australian guys? I'm surprised there's two! Seems no matter where you go in the world there's always "the lone Aussie." hahaha