Well today is the day we get to visit Petra and get a guided tour of the city. This place is huge, you just don’t get the scale of the place from the guides on it. The ticket we got included a free horse ride down to the entrance of the site but I didn’t bother with this and only one person took the offer, it wasn’t that far to walk anyway. Once we hit the canyon it was pretty spectacular looking and this lead us to the most famous part of Petra the treasury building which was the one that appeared in the Indiana Jones and the last crusade. It’s an amasing site but one of many in this complex. We then left the treasury building and headed further down the canyon which opened up to reveal the rest of the site.
we carried on for another hour before we headed off for lunch and after lunch we were free to explore the rest of the site on our own. I decided to visit the monastery along with the bunk friend Trevor which was up some 800 stairs at the top of the Petra site. After about 25 mins of climbing stairs we came to the monastery which is very similar looking to the treasury building but much larger. There was an alternative view point to view the site from which involved us climbing more hills but was worth it as you can survey the whole area from here and get some spectacular views. Then it was the long walk down the stairs and back up the canyon and back to the hotel.
Tonight was also our celebration night and we ended up in a restaurant further back up the hill which we had ridden down the previous day. Again it was a buffet which left me a little disappointed as the celebration meal for my Vietnam to Cambodia ride was a set meal and a far better one than this one but I suppose beggars can be choosers. After the meal we all pretty much ended up in the pub not to far from our hotel called the cave. Suffice to say a lot of alcohol and music was consumed there and we didn’t get back to the hotel until after one in the morning. This also meant that we would probably only get about 4 hours sleep as we had to be back up again at 6 am for the journey home. :sick:
