Roaming Brood

On our jeep ride, two of our stops were... Let's start with the first of those two:  CAMEL RIDING!!! Our camels When our guide parked in the sand parking lot, we got out and went to look at the people who worked with the camels. I was excited and nervous at the same time  The smallest camel was squawking like a bird!  Our guide told my dad that he was going to use the small one;)  All of the camels sat down for us to get on.  When my dad was on the camel, it rose.  He was really high up even on the baby camel!  This camel kept squawking and appeared angry... I got a little freaked out and definitely kept my distance.  While the camel was still standing, one of the guides asked my dad to hop off.  He was doing well until his foot stumbled on another camel behind him.  He lost his balance and tripped on a rope and laid-out into a pile of camel poop!  YAY!  They tied the angry camel back up and decided ...

Even with all of the different countries on our itinerary,  Jordan was one of the places I was most excited to visit.  Unfortunately,  our last night in Petra was when we stayed up all night trying to book flights home.  Knowing we had a mere 48 hours left in the country, we accelerated our plans so we could still make it to Wadi Rum and let the kids ride camels in the desert.  We left Petra a day early to venture to the southern part of Jordan. Wadi Rum As Mike mentioned in his post, it was rainy and windy while we were in Petra.  This made for a very slow and challenging drive south through the mountainous terrain.  The fog was extremely thick and the roads were partially washed out.  We, however, were determined to push through so we took our time on the switchback roads and, 2 hours of focus later, emerged to much lower altitude and somewhat clearer skies. Thick fog on treacherous roads.  We took it SLOWLY!! ...

I'll cut to the chase - ancient Petra is BIG, so you can't really see it all in one day... hence this post being 'Part II'! You can see that the very bottom of the Monastery building has eroded away, but it's still impressive! There is another big carved building on site - as big and arguably as magnificent as the very well-photographed Treasury building.  It's a hike to get there though - along ancient Petra's famous merchant staircase/road. We took the shortcut road in from Uum Sayhoun - a 1.5km downhill stroll down a paved road The valley in which ancient Petra was built is actually quite deep - the road in from Uum Sayhoun covers a good vertical drop.  Parker and I went off-roading in the scree and cliffs, which was fun - we met herds of goats and their keepers and tackled some fun terrain. Parker off-roading Once down in the valley, cave dwellings start to pepper the landscape. Again, all caves are accessible by foot without rest...