The Petra 10k race and Why Everyone Should Own a Donkey.

Rather than having our weekly cultural activity after class on Thurdsday, we went to Petra and Wadi Rum for the weekend.  Friday morning, 5:45am the gang and I trudged out of the hotel and into a slightly oversized minivan that had exactly as many seats as people. We were greeted by a smiling Yousef, Wijdane (our professors) and met our guide for the week. Over the drone of the guide talking at us in Arabic about the history of Petra, we eventually all fell back to sleep. We stopped at a rest stop outside of Petra (Petra itself is quite expensive) to buy the makings for lunch that afternoon and around four hours later we arrived in the parking lot of Petra, swarming with tourists. We were each given our ticket that costs 50 jd (That is more than 50 bucks! The Jordanian fare is ONE dinar), headed to the bathroom, avoided offers to buy T-shirts and hats, and eventually make our way towards the entrance. Upon entering, we are immediately flooded with offers to ride donkeys and camels.  I have to say, if there is anything I gained from my trip to Petra (besides a mild sunburn, of course) it is an extreme new found appreciation for donkeys.  Petra has something like 1200 stairs in total (I would know, I climbed all of them but we'll get to that later). I watched famished looking donkey after donkey gracefully trot up and down these uneven, steep, jagged steps sluffing overweight tourists on their backs.  While taking a particularly leisurely stroll down through the rose colored canyons of the siq, we arrived stopped at what looked like two urinals carved into the canyon.

The guide quickly corrected us by making Jordi and I each stand in one of the alcoves, and hold hands.  He explained that this was, in fact, a marriage alter and pronounced us husband and wife.  Here is us at our wedding. Mom, I'm following in your footsteps- he's Spanish.

Me, Dave, and Ben at the end of the Siq

The Wedding

After the ceremony and coming to a solid understanding that this joke will inevitably continue for the rest of the trip, we arrived at the awe inspiring (ok I know that cliches like this are bad in writing but it really is that beautiful!) Treasury.  Before I could offer any attention to the magnificent structure in front of me I became engrossed with the camel(s) laying in front of it. They are truly the weirdest animal I have ever seen. I tentatively approached one for a picture, but quickly retreated upon remembering their little spitting habit.  After soaking in all the magnificence of the Treasury we continued on our journey another few kilometers to a cafe like area where we broke out our lunch.  By the time we were finished it was roughly 2:30.  Later that day we were heading off to Wadi Rum and had to be there by sunset to meet our hosts, thus we were on (or so I thought) a very strict time table.  Our guide insisted that we be back to the bus by 4:30pm. Unfortunately, we had moseyed so slowly through the siq and past the treasury that we had only about two hours to see two more of the landmarks, the Monastery and the High Place of Sacrifice, a journey (hey that was one of our vocab words last week! رحلة) that could easily take a good six hours to accomplish.  Determined to defy the odds (again with the cliches, sorry) the 10 of us or so that decided to move on significantly picked up the pace headed towards the Monastery.  We didn't miss a beat starting up the stairs, skipping every few, bouncing up the steps. About three minutes into our uphill journey it became clear that we would not be able to keep up this pace the entire time. A few in the group even decided to bow out and go back to the shady area with the others.  ten minutes and probably 300 some stairs later we are still not there. I start asking the women selling jewelry along the sides of the path how much further and I swear for the next twenty minutes every singly person said "you're almost there, 2 min max) Something like half and hour and 800 stairs later (no seriously, I saw a sign) we arrived at the Monastery. 

The Treasury

 Before I caught a glimpse of the huge structure  a cafe caught my eye that was selling 3 jd (that is like five or so dollars) mint lemonade that was undoubtedly priced as such simply because by the time people are at the top, they would probably draw blood to quench their thirst.  Although most of the group had initially shown interest in seeing both sites, Ben, Evelyn and I were the only ones that still felt that way by the time we had reached the top of the monastery. I took a decent amount of pictures, decided I could steal the rest from other peoples' facebooks, and with an hour left on the clock, we ran (actually ran) back down the steps towards the  High Place of Sacrifice. We had to pass the shady area to get to the entryway of the sacrificial alter and by the time we reached the alter, Evelyn had decided to call it quits.  I was about on her level in terms of exhaustion/feet hurting but I was determined to see the view (another vocab word! منظر) and to prove to myself that I could continue.  Having already gone through four liters, I was out of water and outrageously out of breath before we even started up the next set of stairs up to the alter.  Ben, still somehow full of energy, stayed a good 20 feet in front of me the whole way up. I thought about how much I wished I was on a donkey the entire climb up, but knew I would only feel like I was going to have a heart attack for a few more minutes, and continued my way up. Another 300, much steeper and weirder stairs later, we arrived on to the top.  Ben jumped from rock to rock until he found the best view and took as many pictures as he could in roughly thirty seconds. (I actually would have fainted if I had gone another step). By now it was 4:15 and we were a good two miles and 300 stairs down away from the bus.  We ran, again, (I don't know how I was literally running the entire time yet still 50 feet behind Ben...) fully intending to have a cart (pulled by donkeys) take us the next two or three miles back to the van.  We brisk walked/jogged back up the siq waiting for someone to offer us a ride and were SERIOUSLY disappointed to be told that even the "special for you" price was 25 jd.  I didn't have a cent on me and Ben had 10.  My dreams of not ever running ever again were crushed as we were forced to pick up the pace.  Ben ran ahead to buy a gift and make sure the bus didn't leave.  On my solo hike for the last 10 or so minutes back to the entrance, I garnered a lot of attention from the men loitering. Not for particularly favorable reasons, but rather for comments like "Are you OK?" "Here, come here, I will give you water" "TAKE A SHOWER LADY" etc.  Once I caught up with Ben, we realized the bus wasn't there. We contemplated the idea that they left without us but it was 4:34pm.  I have done my fair share of being late to call times but from experience, the entire group will generally not leave two people behind after being 4 minutes late.  We put our search efforts on a hiatus and got some desperately needed water.  I took four of Ben's JD and asked the shop keeper to give me as much water as this would buy.  About 35 minutes of mild panic later, we see some American looking stragglers sauntering in through the entrance. After telling them they struggle of our journey ( as if they couldn't tell by the state I was in) two of the girls admitted that they had seen us jogging away and "just figured we were running for the exercise or something."  I was too tired, blistery, and for some reason cold (that was when I thought something was seriously wrong) to make too many snide comments about their failure to inform us that 4:30 was more of a loose time table, and went to sit down on the bus.  I laid on the floor of the bus pondering the feeling of exhausting pulsing through my body, enjoying every minute of it. Call me masochistic, but the sensation of utter fatigue brought me right back to dance.  For just a moment that void in my life was filled.

Ian, David N, and Ben Waiting for the sun to set over Wadi Rum

Wadi Rum was of course gorgeous as well. We camped in Bedouin tents and had a meal that was prepared under the sand.  Around 10pm, after an extremely long day, we pulled out mats outside of the grounds and fell asleep under the stars.  We woke up the next morning to a day of alternating between sand walking, hiking, climbing on rocks, and cruising through the desert in the back of jeeps.  After an amazing weekend exploring two of the "new wonders of the world" we arrived back at Ziyara inn. Thankfully, our professors were just as tired as we were and decided to postpone the following day's class time by an hour, and call off the homework. :)

This weekend I am off the Beirut, Lebanon with a few of the girls in the program. I'm sure I will come home with lots to share. 

If you're reading this, I probably miss you.