Little Petra

The itinerary is in full flow and the next item on the list is the most famous – Petra.

Part of me is dreading the crowds. It’s one of the most visited places in the world apparently; so far we have been extremely fortunate in avoiding the masses but I suspect Petra will be mobbed. . Still, can you imagine coming to Jordan and not seeing Petra?

Some unsettling news – Palestine has attacked Israel which will no doubt have some serious repercussions. While Jordan has been involved in the peace talks between Israel and Palestine, their sympathies lie with Palestine. Let’s hope the Jordanian people remain detached from any conflict.

An uneventful journey led us to the super-luxury-deluxe For Seasons Petra hotel. (How do they get away with this?) It’s a most eclectic mix of conventional rooms, chalets and domes. The staff are extremely obliging and our room is very nice – so it should be for £200+ per night, we would never normally spend that much on a room but needs must – but the whole point of a dome room is to see out of it and the top windows are covered in sand so we can’t see anything let alone gaze romantically from our bed at a star spangled sky!

We all decided to explore Little Petra which is a half hour walk from the hotel. Yet another of Louis Burckhardt’s discoveries, Little Petra (or Siq al Barid which means cold canyon) is thought to have been a suburb of the city of Petra. It was perfect for a mini expedition after our drive and we had a potter around the main sights followed by a short, hot hike through some of the desert scenery close by.

We spent the rest of the afternoon around the pool followed by drinks on our terrace with J and N.

Dinner was less successful. After being promised we could ask for anything we wanted at the restaurant, it seemed that even the food listed on the menu wasn’t available. Nik’s spaghetti supposedly with some sort of meatballs arrived minus the balls and some kind of weird looking thing on the top which looked like salmon but turned out to be bread. Steve’s wine was the second most vile glass of wine he’s ever had ( the Cinar in Dalaman still holds the record for that) but my meze was delish so it was all fine in my book.

Tomorrow we go to Petra – The Big One.