Golden Tulip Kingsway Wadi Musa

... about a place... <br><br>Some interesting stats so far (after 30 days of travelling):<br><br>89 hours and 45 spent on bus/taxi/shuttle<br>slept in 10 hotels<br>spent 4 nights on the bus<br>1 lost watch (Manolo lost the watch he had just purchased in Instanbul a few days later on our trip to mount nemrut)<br>1 game of chess<br>several kilos of bananas and uncountable liters of tea<br><br>Next Stop: Dahab, EGYPT! <br><br><br>greets, <br><br>HelMan &amp; Hermann<br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

... The temperature is escalating to the mid-20s C (mid-70s F). <br><br>Wadi Rum was made famous by TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) who, with the assistance of the British, led the Arab Revolt against the Turks in 1917 to reclaim the lands from Wadi Rum south to Aqaba. <br> <br>Wadi Rum has extraordinary desert scenery. It has rugged mountains with copper and granite veins. The changing angle of the sun makes for an ever changing dramatic ...

... pretty fun. <br>By the time we made it back to the van it was too late to go to the castle we had planned on seeing. I didn't care. I would have been happy to stay the night. However, the kids had enough. They were hot, tired and hungry. We went straight back to the hotel. <br>Dinner was at the same restaurant as the night before. "The Spring Days" restaurant. One the way there I was able to visit with my Deaf friend at the juice stand. On our way ...

... sweaty as it was really hot and having not showered in the desert (water is a precious commodity and we weren't that desperate to waste it) we were grotty and dusty. Being in the sun we added sunscreen to the dirty mix on our skin and wandered more till we found a rock in the shade to sit on to eat our lunch. The hotel sold lunch packs which meant we didn&#8217;t have to pay enormous dinars for food and drink. So we sat like little kids on a school outing and ate our ...

... had on us. By the time I got back to the camp, breakfast was being prepared and we had to start packing up for our one-hour bus trip to our next destination, the place we are now, Petra, Jordan. Bonnie and I were the only foreigners on the bus, since this was not the way tourists usally travel through these parts. But I had made friends with some well-connected people while in Aqaba, and they made our travel arrangements for us. My Arabic actually helped get us favours that ...

... laugh too much cause I didn't want to upset the bloke but oh how it tickled. After this and one final rinsing it was time to get change and relax with some Turkish tea and it was lovely. I was very relaxed after that and walked back upstairs with jelly legs and just flopped on the bed.<br><br>We rose after a nice afternoon nap, had some dinner and then we were walking back down to Petra for Petra at night! Arriving at the gate we met up with all the other people from the group and the ...

... leg so we picked the best of what was in budget and suffered an unimaginative meal. The whole town has really nothing to offer, just scruffy little shops and dirty sidewalks. I'm sure the people are wonderful but we didn't really have a chance to find out. We had one day in Petra - we were told that 1 day was not enough but by the end we felt we had seen a good representation of the ruins and wouldn't have needed more time. Walking through the Siq was certainly magical. Not ...

... massaged then afterwards a shower. Quite homo-erotic in parts. Guy got very close to my nether regions which made me wince a bit. He wasn't a huge guy but quite muscly and hairy. The amount of dead skin he got off me was incredible. Massage was good. Body felt like a pulp afterwards. Clicked my bones in my spine and legs and arms, and made noises which can't be good. He also scrubbed my hand so hard it made a big cut which I didn't realise ...

... cooked on ceremonial occasions and theoretically involves placing the boiled lamb's head in the centre of the platter. Call us wimps if you like (are you out there Ro?) but we were grateful to be having the everyday version! Anyway, either we ate a bit too much or we were still recovering from the flight but for one reason or another we all slept for the rest of the journey to Petra. <br><br>On ...

... magnificent views of the site. The Monastery itself is larger than the Treasury and is just as impressive. From there I walked up a bit further to get some dramatic views of the surroundings. Jagged mountains falling down to Wadi Musa and the Dead Sea thousands of feet below sea level. This is where I ate my picnic lunch before heading all the way back. <br><br>All in all about 6 hours at the site - it was a great day.