Day 10 Petra

Day 10 Jordan tuesday

We got up and had breakfast with Tom and then parted ways with all our tour buddies and headed off on our own.  We got a cab to the border crossing ten minutes away from Eilat. We paid our exit tax of 101 shekels which was less than we expected.  The border crossing lady was surprised to see that Gretchen had an Israeli entrance stamp in her passport so she put an exit stamp. Gretchen was surprised too. She didn't know they had stamped it. I was concerned and checked mine. Whew. No stamp. I just have to make sure I don't get one when we go back into Israel. The only trouble I had was I had forgotten to take my Indian residence card out of my passport. It isn't bad-just confuses people.  We went through several checkpoints until we finally got to the Jordanian side. A soldier taught me how to say "I love you" in Arabic and the taxi guy offered me a thousand camels (a marriage proposal) I'll add that to the two proposals I've gotten from Indians. Ha!

The taxi drove us about 2 kilometers then pulled over next to another car and said that the car would follow us then we'd get in the new car. Gretchen was afraid this would be the last anyone ever heard from us and we'd be the fourth wife of a Bedouin. Ha! I had heard they give the borders a wide berth and that there a cars that only drive in no man's land and then you pick up a Jordanian driver. The new car we got into was much nicer and the driver was nice but talked a little too much. We drove about an hour and 15 minutes then he pulled over to a store to buy souvenirs. It was sooooooo cold!! Even inside we could see our breath!? 20 minutes later we were in the Hotel Edom  which is a cute hotel with character and is very close to the entrance gate to Petra.  The town of Wadi Musa has a lot of shops and restaurants and there are a lot more Christmas trees up here than in Israel which is surprising because only 7 percent of Jordan is Christian.

That two hour ride cost 75 dollars.

We settled into the hotel then ventured toward Petra. I had Shekels, dollars and rupees with me but no dinars so I had to change some money. A two day ticket to Petra is about 82 US dollars.  Which is only 7 dollars more than a one day ticket :)  We hired Muhammed to give us a tour For three hours - 75 dollars. Expensive but worth it. He shared so much information!  There really aren't word for Petra. I don't even know how to start explaining it so I won't. We were about an hour into our tour when we heard our names being called.  Bill, whom we had last seen on Saturday night' midnight Mass was standing right there! it was good to see that he was doing ok. 

Our guide left us at the Byzatine church after the three hours was up. We walked the 40 minutes back out and had dinner.  We found dr. Pepper again! We had it on Christmas day and thought it was a gift from God!