On the 12th day of Egypt, my true love gave to me, a relaxing day by the pool. That's right, on our last day in town, we did practically nothing. We spent far too much time getting things straightened out for moving on to Jordan. For some reason contacting Marriott reservations in Cairo turned into a huge fiasco, and we finally broke down and sprung for a call to the US, to have our savior Francie call the US Marriott number. That fixed everything. We spent a good portion of the afternoon reading and napping around the pool, where a very nice gentleman refused to let us go thirsty. It turns out they pour one heck of a long island iced tea. We grabbed some dinner at the cafe, and got ourselves packed up to leave in the morning. The rest of the girls were headed back to the states, so we had our favorite van guy come pick them up at 1:30 a.m. and we thought we'd communicated that we'd like for him to come back and pick us up at 7, but by 7:10 he still hadn't arrived. We had the hotel grab us a cab, and for the first time all trip, they worked out the rate for us before we got in. We had to work to communicate that W and I were going to one place and Dave was going someplace else, but we eventually got it figure out. Unfortunately once we got out of the cab at what we thought was our terminal it turned out to be wrong, and there's no efficient way to walk between the two. So we had to wait for the bus. Meanwhile a cab driver wanted to take us over there, and the longer we waited the lower his fare got, but we eventually held out for the bus. When you're nervous about whether your doing the right thing those waits seem like an eternity especially when the more nervous you look the more often the cab driver comes over. The bus eventually came, and off to our terminal we went. We checked ourselves in and got some seats right away w
hich is always nice, and were ready to head off to passport control. By this point in the trip I am by far the brownest I've been in years, and with my features and hair, it's hard to tell exactly what you're looking at when you see me. So when the border agent hands me back my passport I tried to be polite, and said the Arabic word for thank you: shokrun, and started walking. The agent quickly stands up, whips around and says with an angry look in his eye "Are you an Arab"? I stand there frozen, and whimper out a "no...". He says "But you speak Arabic"? With my wits back about me, I manage to get out "Just hello, and thank you". He looks less stressed by that point, and lets me through. I check my underwear, and am ready to go get on the plane. In
Egypt they don't even have gates like we're used to here. You always get on a bus, even if it only goes one hundred feet out to where your plane is. Royal Jordanian's seats are nice, comparable to the premium economy of domestic carriers. The service was solid, and the food was good too. In no time we'd landed in Amman. We'd had the Marriott in Petra arrange a car for us, and sure enough a nice gentleman was waiting for us as soon as we got out of the terminal. Having your name on a sign does make you feel like a rock star. He took us out to a cab that was waiting, and off we went to Wadi Musa. It's about a 3 hour trip from Amman, and there are a few military looking checkpoints along the way but they were more interested in taxi licenses and such than W and I in the back seat. The driver already knew that we were in petra for 2 days and then heading to the Jordan valley, and signed himself up to drive us from petra there, and from there to the airport. and as many trips from the hotel down to Petra as we needed. Having our needs anticipated for a change was a nice touch. I wanted desperately to stay awake for the whole t.rip, but eventually the early morning caught up with me. I woke up just as we were getting to Wadi Musa, which means I was awake just in time for a photo op. We arrived shortly after at the
Petra Marriott, where it was calm and peaceful compared to the lobby in Cairo. We got a room with a great view, and the front desk strongly recommended we check out Petra by night. We'd read good things about it, so we got tickets and they would arrange our driver to get us there. That gave us time to grab some snacks and a Jordanian beer. There's an amazing outdoor patio overlooking the canyon, with drink specials during sunset hours. We got ourselves ready for Petra by night, layering up for the significant drop in temperature we were experiencing there. Up high at the hotel there was quite a cold
wind, so we were prepared for the worst. Our cab showed up right on time and took us down the winding roads to the Petra visitor center. We gathered there, and when the time comes you start the walk down to Petra there are over 1500 luminaries there to light your path, and they ask everyone to be quiet so the experience is really wonderful. You don't realize that most of the way is down hill, and since you're down in a canyon, the weather is not so bad. Eventually you get to the treasury where there are hundreds of luminaries and a woven mat for everyone to sit on. They bring you a nice warm cup of mint tea, and then the performance begins. One man plays an ancient stringed instrument and sings, and the acoustics from the canyon walls make the sound so pure. After the singing someone begins to play a flute from inside the treasury, eventually walking out and moving around the crowd. I have never heard a sound like the flute that night, it was as if sound completely wrapped around you. It's not all fun and games, you're on the ground and there are rocks underneath you in the sand, but I'd go back every night given the opportunity. After taking the time for pictures we made the treck back up to the visitors center, which made us realize how downhill the trip in was. Our cab was waiting for us, and then back to the hotel for some dinner. We decided to try the italian restaurant and were pleasantly suprised on all counts. I had a filet that only cost $16, try finding a filet for that price in the states, and we sampled a really wonderful Jordanian wine. We didn't finish the bottle, but they were nice enough to hold it until the next day for us. After a long traveling day we crashed pretty early, aiming to be out the door at 7 the next day.
On the 12th day of Egypt, my true love gave to me, a relaxing day by the pool. That's right, on our last day in town, we did practically nothing. We spent far too much time getting things straightened out for moving on to Jordan. For some reason contacting Marriott reservations in Cairo turned into a huge fiasco, and we finally broke down and sprung for a call to the US, to have our savior Francie call the US Marriott number. That fixed everything. We spent a good portion of the afternoon reading and napping around the pool, where a very nice gentleman refused to let us go thirsty. It turns out they pour one heck of a long island iced tea. We grabbed some dinner at the cafe, and got ourselves packed up to leave in the morning. The rest of the girls were headed back to the states, so we had our favorite van guy come pick them up at 1:30 a.m. and we thought we'd communicated that we'd like for him to come back and pick us up at 7, but by 7:10 he still hadn't arrived. We had the hotel grab us a cab, and for the first time all trip, they worked out the rate for us before we got in. We had to work to communicate that W and I were going to one place and Dave was going someplace else, but we eventually got it figure out. Unfortunately once we got out of the cab at what we thought was our terminal it turned out to be wrong, and there's no efficient way to walk between the two. So we had to wait for the bus. Meanwhile a cab driver wanted to take us over there, and the longer we waited the lower his fare got, but we eventually held out for the bus. When you're nervous about whether your doing the right thing those waits seem like an eternity especially when the more nervous you look the more often the cab driver comes over. The bus eventually came, and off to our terminal we went. We checked ourselves in and got some seats right away w
hich is always nice, and were ready to head off to passport control. By this point in the trip I am by far the brownest I've been in years, and with my features and hair, it's hard to tell exactly what you're looking at when you see me. So when the border agent hands me back my passport I tried to be polite, and said the Arabic word for thank you: shokrun, and started walking. The agent quickly stands up, whips around and says with an angry look in his eye "Are you an Arab"? I stand there frozen, and whimper out a "no...". He says "But you speak Arabic"? With my wits back about me, I manage to get out "Just hello, and thank you". He looks less stressed by that point, and lets me through. I check my underwear, and am ready to go get on the plane. In
Egypt they don't even have gates like we're used to here. You always get on a bus, even if it only goes one hundred feet out to where your plane is. Royal Jordanian's seats are nice, comparable to the premium economy of domestic carriers. The service was solid, and the food was good too. In no time we'd landed in Amman. We'd had the Marriott in Petra arrange a car for us, and sure enough a nice gentleman was waiting for us as soon as we got out of the terminal. Having your name on a sign does make you feel like a rock star. He took us out to a cab that was waiting, and off we went to Wadi Musa. It's about a 3 hour trip from Amman, and there are a few military looking checkpoints along the way but they were more interested in taxi licenses and such than W and I in the back seat. The driver already knew that we were in petra for 2 days and then heading to the Jordan valley, and signed himself up to drive us from petra there, and from there to the airport. and as many trips from the hotel down to Petra as we needed. Having our needs anticipated for a change was a nice touch. I wanted desperately to stay awake for the whole t.rip, but eventually the early morning caught up with me. I woke up just as we were getting to Wadi Musa, which means I was awake just in time for a photo op. We arrived shortly after at the Petra Marriott, where it was calm and peaceful compared to the lobby in Cairo. We got a room with a great view, and the front desk strongly recommended we check out Petra by night. We'd read good things about it, so we got tickets and they would arrange our driver to get us there. That gave us time to grab some snacks and a Jordanian beer. There's an amazing outdoor patio overlooking the canyon, with drink specials during sunset hours. We got ourselves ready for Petra by night, layering up for the significant drop in temperature we were experiencing there. Up high at the hotel there was quite a cold 
wind, so we were prepared for the worst. Our cab showed up right on time and took us down the winding roads to the Petra visitor center. We gathered there, and when the time comes you start the walk down to Petra there are over 1500 luminaries there to light your path, and they ask everyone to be quiet so the experience is really wonderful. You don't realize that most of the way is down hill, and since you're down in a canyon, the weather is not so bad. Eventually you get to the treasury where there are hundreds of luminaries and a woven mat for everyone to sit on. They bring you a nice warm cup of mint tea, and then the performance begins. One man plays an ancient stringed instrument and sings, and the acoustics from the canyon walls make the sound so pure. After the singing someone begins to play a flute from inside the treasury, eventually walking out and moving around the crowd. I have never heard a sound like the flute that night, it was as if sound completely wrapped around you. It's not all fun and games, you're on the ground and there are rocks underneath you in the sand, but I'd go back every night given the opportunity. After taking the time for pictures we made the treck back up to the visitors center, which made us realize how downhill the trip in was. Our cab was waiting for us, and then back to the hotel for some dinner. We decided to try the italian restaurant and were pleasantly suprised on all counts. I had a filet that only cost $16, try finding a filet for that price in the states, and we sampled a really wonderful Jordanian wine. We didn't finish the bottle, but they were nice enough to hold it until the next day for us. After a long traveling day we crashed pretty early, aiming to be out the door at 7 the next day. 
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