enough for us. We walked over to the Tayellet (boardwalk) and got some ice cream before heading to bed early before our very early morning pick up at 6:45. Our tour company, Desert Eco Tours, picked us up in an awesome jeep: --------------------------------------------->>>Then we drove around and picked up some other really nice young people (oddly, some Jewish, some not) and headed towards the Jordanian border. We got there about 20 minutes before it opened so we would be the first through and not have to wait around forever. We got through very quickly and the Israeli side , walked across the no-man's-land section to the Jordanian side, where we had to wait in the gift shop while our Jordanian guide checked our passports through for us. I changed over 5 Euro and got 5 Dinar. Then we got into our very nice air-conditioned van and then a Jordanian tourist police office joined us, we believe he was there no only for protection, we believe he was there for purposes of censorship. We drove trough Aqaba just to see this really tall flag they have there, I guess it's in the Guinness book or something, not so impressive, and then we headed north for 2 hours to Petra, of course stopping on the way at the little shop to pee and buy shit. We got really lucky because even though it was a hot day and the sun was shining it wasn't very humid so I didn't feel as hot. Once we arrived in Petra we began our descent down the canyon, seeing carved sandstone statutes and beautiful colored rock canyon walls. It was very shady and there was an old cobblestone path so we didn't have to walk through sand. Then just as we were about t reach a corner, our guide had us line up and face backwards looking at something, but it was a trick, then he had us all spin around and behind us you could see the Treasury, the most famous site in Petra:
It was so cool to see, and especially because our guide told us that back in the ancient day that they had to hang from the top and carve from the top down. And the entire thing is carved out of the canyon made of sandstone.
They filmed the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed here, but they only filmed the front of it, because there isn't anything inside except for some empty rooms. But the outside is beautiful and has so much detail. Right next to the Treasury was a huge set of sandstone stairs that were fading away because of the erosion of dust but Jason and I climbed them anyways and got up to this big cave, which had nothing in it and smelled like pee, but it was a fun little experiment. Then we moved on down the main stretch of Petra, it was filled with gorgeous facade all the way up the side of the canyon hundreds of feet in the air. There were also many little open air caves in the walls of the canyons. The facades were said to be the graves of the society that had lived there and the plain caves were there homes. The society that lived there believed that after death was the most important part so they made beautiful graves site. We walked all the way down the to the end where there were tons of restaurants, so we had an all you can eat meal, which I thought was very delicious (but the next day Jason and I were both not feeling too well). Then we were on our own to walk back up to the bus, so we had time to take pictures and climb things, which is what we did. Right at the end of the path, we ran into a very good friend of ours from Brandeis, Zack, who is doing a dig in Israel this summer. It was such an amazing coincidence to see him. After parting ways, we got back on the bus and slept our way back to the Israeli border. We got back to our hotel right before sunset, but we weren't about to starting Shabbat.
That night we decided to really go out to dinner, so we went to this restaurant on a boat recommended by my parents, it had amazing fish and I of course got the most un-kosher plate of seafood. Then we walked over to the beach right off of the Tayellet and went for a nighttime swim, it was so warm there that it almost felt better to swim at night. Later, we walked back to the hotel and collapsed because we were so exhausted.
The next morning we woke up late and headed to the beach, we first settled at the public beach that was pretty empty and only occupied by Israeli families who were camped out in tents. We spent some nice time there swimming and reading. Then we headed over to a second beach, which was actually right next to a bar/restaurant and has tons of chairs out on the sand, ti was pretty full but not crowded and we spent the rest of the afternoon there. They had a floating raft out in the ocean were people could climb up and lay so we did that, although the raft was pretty tall and my knees got pretty cut up trying to climb on. Later in the afternoon we deiced to go para-sailing, because Jason had never been and I really loved it the first time I did it. Jason was so scared that we wouldn't let go of the ropes the whole time he was in the air, but he said afterward that it was very fun. I, of course, loved it especially when I was dropped all the way underwater!! Then we had a light dinner and got back on the bus and slept our 4 hour drive back to Jerusalem. We got home and went right to bed.
All in all it was a wonderful sun filled vacation down south.
will write more soon,
Adra
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