The previous post in this series is here..
We woke up at 3:30 AM and drove to Cairo Airport from our hotel. Then caught a flight to Amman. There was a pre-paid Visa (thanks to Latif) which we had to get and then clear Immigration and customs. It was a decent airport but the smoking room door was wide open! So the whole area smelled of cigarette smoke. I went to the restroom and found cigarette butts in the toilet.
This cannot be happening was my first thought. It was an international airport for crying out loud! Came out of that area and once we were out of the airport away from people, took a few deep breaths to calm down.
We met our driver and guide Zaid. Between him and Ala, our other driver, they were going to drive and guide us for the Jordan leg of the tour. Not all of us could get on the same flight. So six of us made it on a 6:30 flight and the other two were on a 8 AM flight. Given our rest stop break, they made it to Petra within an hour after we reached.
Most of the folks dozed off during the three hour drive. I was trying to stay up and take videos and also talk to Zaid to understand the area.
Once we reached Petra, we were all hungry so we went straight to a restaurant suggested by our guides called "My Mom's recipe restaurant". It was walking distance from our hotel and the Petra site entrance and Museum.
The rooftop restaurant was well decorated and cozy!
Mom's recipe apparently included too much salt. The lentil soup was good but very salty. The rest of the food was amazing. They had a lot of veggie options. There was even french fries in the menu!
After all of us ate, we went and checked into the Le Maison Hotel. We all got a 2 hour nap.
We started for the Museum at 4PM. It was a really quiet and nice museum. It was all self explanatory. We spent an hour in the museum, then took pictures outside as the sun started to set. Most of the museum is covered in the video.. I also thought some of the museum claims on plaques were exaggerated..
The first two pics were taken before we went into the museum.. the next two after we came out an hour later..
golden hour makes such a difference..
This was followed by some shopping in the stores next to the museum. We were debating having dinner at one of the other places when we saw that the menus were identical with slightly higher prices. So it was decided that we go back to the rooftop at Mom's recipe in hopes that mom uses less salt for dinner.
Turns out Mom is consistant and they like to make their soup that way! The folks tried a bunch of other veggie items and they all turned out great. The soup was okay with rice, so I made a daal chaawal out of it. It was a win win for the group!
My BIL had planned a surprise cake cutting for my co-sister and Zaid and Ala arranged it nicely. It was a happy moment for the entire group on what was an otherwise long and tiring day.
Also Jordan was expected to by much colder, but it was pleasant in the evening!
A video highlights of our first day in Petra..
We made it back to our hotel and for once we had to be at the breakfast area only at 7AM and start sightseeing at 8AM.
That made our day! Finally a night of rest and sleep!
