Day 9: Petra

Another big day today!
We boarded a bus at 6:15am for Petra... it broke down in the middle of the desert, but luckily another bus was following that we were able to board immediately. We arrived at the "Visitor Centre" in Petra at 10:40am. We bought our ticket and began our hike. It is a very long and very hot walk to the first part of Petra... it took almost 1 hour before we got to the Treasury. Fortunately, the last 30 minutes of that walk is through the siq, which is like the walls of the Grand Canyon (without water). Once inside the Petra site it is very hot but quite breath-taking. You'll see a small selection of the pictures below... we hope it serves it justice. We walked to the end, then decided to take a camel back to the Treasury before exiting. We asked our camel owner what the temperature was and he confirmed that it was 37.5 degrees... kind of normal, but under the searing sun it felt hotter.
Sue and Mark drove to Petra to pick us up (4pm) and continue our journey to Aqaba. We drove along the upper rim of the Wadi Rum desert on the King's Highway. It took approximately 1h 45min to arrive to the Intercontinental in Aqaba. The temperature at 6pm was 51 degrees... yup, 51, 5-1 DEGREES!!!!! It feels like walking past an open oven door... but you never get past it!! The resort is beautiful and beaches on the Red Sea (Gulf of Aqaba). From the beach (at night) we can see the lights from - Saudi Arabia, Egypt & Israel. No pictures from the resort yet... they will follow.
Tomorrow will be a lazy day until ~3pm, then we're off to Wadi Rum for a desert hike and to see a beautiful sunset!

Petra - Architecture of Assyrian, Egyptian, Hellenistic and Roman influence but made by the Nabataean people in the early 1st century AD (http://www.atlastours.net/jordan/petra_map.html)

Siq into Petra

Our first glimpse of The Treasury

The Treasury

"The Street of Facades" -

Silk Tomb

Lower Basin - outside the Crowne Plaza restaurant inside Petra (not the hotel, just the small restaurant)

Donkeys in Lower Basin - donkeys can be VERY loud!

facades

Really cool rock colours inside a cave

Tom & Deed on camels!! :)