We started our trip by walking across the border to Jordan. They take border crossings seriously in this part of the world. There is nothing quick about the process and there are so many inspections and stamps involved that by the end of this one trip my brand new passport is going to be half full. Border crossings aren't made any better by the fact that it is a million degrees outside in August. (My centigrade to fahrenheit conversion isn't perfect, but I think that a million degrees is fairly accuarte).
We had a driver waiting for us on the Jordanian side and he drove us to Petra where we met my mom and brother who had flown into Amman the day before. We arrived at the hotel within minutes of each other. Spectacular planning on my dad's part. We went on an introductory hike through petra that afternoon with the world's most annoying tour guide. He had some good information to share, but we really had to work for it. He wouldn't just tell us, he asked a question and then made each one of us offer a different guess before telling us the correct answer, which was always different from all five of our responses. I stopped being amused by this approach after the second question, but he persisted for the full two hours of the tour. Later that night we went back for Petra by night that involved the same hike down to the treasury with the path lit by luminarias. It was stunning.
The next morning we made a final excursion to Petra for a longer hike to the monastery. The monastery is at the end of a very long, hot, and steep climb, but so worth it. Petra was an incredible place. There are so many ruins--I had no idea. Hiking around Petra felt a lot like hiking around Zion with all the same beautiful natural scenery, with just some incredible ancient architecture thrown in there. I also loved our drive through part of Jordan for some beautiful mountainous desert scenery. We got to see plenty of camels, but there was an alarming lack of women out in public.
Out of nowhere my dad started using pidgin English, thinking it would help all of the Jordanians understand him better, but really it just served as entertainment for the rest of our family as we laughed at his terrible grammar and complete disregard for prepositions.
Two people drove us around--an older man and a younger one. The younger one was quite attractive and Courtney and I kept making jokes to each other on inappropriate conversation starters, but nothing happened beyond the joking because I've always thought pulling off a fling on family vacation is just too awkward to be worth it. Maybe next time though. :)
We had a driver waiting for us on the Jordanian side and he drove us to Petra where we met my mom and brother who had flown into Amman the day before. We arrived at the hotel within minutes of each other. Spectacular planning on my dad's part. We went on an introductory hike through petra that afternoon with the world's most annoying tour guide. He had some good information to share, but we really had to work for it. He wouldn't just tell us, he asked a question and then made each one of us offer a different guess before telling us the correct answer, which was always different from all five of our responses. I stopped being amused by this approach after the second question, but he persisted for the full two hours of the tour. Later that night we went back for Petra by night that involved the same hike down to the treasury with the path lit by luminarias. It was stunning.
The next morning we made a final excursion to Petra for a longer hike to the monastery. The monastery is at the end of a very long, hot, and steep climb, but so worth it. Petra was an incredible place. There are so many ruins--I had no idea. Hiking around Petra felt a lot like hiking around Zion with all the same beautiful natural scenery, with just some incredible ancient architecture thrown in there. I also loved our drive through part of Jordan for some beautiful mountainous desert scenery. We got to see plenty of camels, but there was an alarming lack of women out in public.
Out of nowhere my dad started using pidgin English, thinking it would help all of the Jordanians understand him better, but really it just served as entertainment for the rest of our family as we laughed at his terrible grammar and complete disregard for prepositions.
Two people drove us around--an older man and a younger one. The younger one was quite attractive and Courtney and I kept making jokes to each other on inappropriate conversation starters, but nothing happened beyond the joking because I've always thought pulling off a fling on family vacation is just too awkward to be worth it. Maybe next time though. :)
1 comment:
Please try to start awkward conversations with all future tour guides. I think it could provide some really fantastic stories. Also, the last picture looks like something from one of the Indiana Jones movies. Did you see Dr. Jones?
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