... Merryl, Marcus, and myself are sitting eating our lunch just above a small riverbed in Dana valley. We have been hiking since early morning and are now on the valley floor. The sun is lovely and warm and high in the sky. The valley is very peaceful. All around us are cliffs towering up with rock formations that are reminiscent of Cappodiccia. Birds, which Merryl says to look like vultures, are circling over the edges of the cliffs. We are tucking into our packed lunches. We are all debating the merits of our food. The lunch has a cold falafel, cake, fruits - a banana and an apple each - , biscuits, and a very, very manky carton of juice, cheese, butter, and jam. It also has an extra flatbread. This item of food is the topic of debate. Merryl and I are tearing our bread into portions, and making two or three sandwiches. Marcus, decides to make one big whopper of a sandwich...
We got up early this morning after a peaceful sleep. Merryl and I hired a heater for our room and we were very thankful for it. It's cold in dem dere hills. The Parle gene-pool is made of tough stock and we have an amazing ability to recuperate - so by the morning, although far from normal, I was much able to hike the 12km down to the valley lodge where we were to pick up our bags and meet our lift to Petra.
The valley hike was amazing. We were all given packed lunches by our kind hotelier. He walked us to the edge of the village and pointed out the route for us. From where we stood it was going to be a lovely hike, winding down, lazily into to the valley floor. We said our good-byes and headed off into the morning sunshine.
We walked all morning nibbling on biscuits and stopped for a late lunch around 1:30pm. We had completely misjudged our destination and turned up at the lodge around 2pm. We still thought we had another hour and a half to walk. So that was a bit of a shock.
... Our driver is winding his way up through the mountains. all around us are red-fired rock
cliffs, and steep valleys fall on either side, vivid red in the afternoon sunshine. We are sitting in the back of the minibus and I am marvelling at how the driver is manging to keep the vehicle on the road. The route snakes precariously through the mountains. We are also giving a local Bedouin lad a lift home. We peel around a particularly steep cliff turn and our driver stops and puts the brakes on. He turns round and gestures to me to pull open the minibus sliding door with a conspirital grin. I reach over and comply with his request. Outside of the minibus door there is no floor but instead a sheer drop for hundreds of feet and the road we travelled up behind it falling away into red, red , sands that merge and become the Jordan desert, reaching out to a horizon miles away...We met our lift and were taken through a particularly scenic route over the mountains and down into Petra on the other side. We also gave a lift home to a Bedouin guy who was at the reserve when we arrived. We rocked in at sunset and checked into a hotel called, quelle surprise, the Petra Hotel. It was a lovely place, not to mention cheap, and for the first time in nearly a month Merryl and I didn't have to push two beds together! Even though we were knackered we decided to head out and eat. We got recommended somewhere cheap and cheerful, which it was. We then went for a beer in a place by the start of Petra called the cave bar - this place, so the guide says, is a refurbished Nabatean tomb; some of the seats in the wall are actually where sarcophagi lay. We had little opportunity to marvel at this, however, as it was fecking freezing: It was, after all, a cave. So we sodded off home. Merryl crashed out and Marcus and I got drunk on Baileys and vanilla vodka and watched some tacky film on cable.
Tomorrow we are going to Petra.
... I am sitting cross-legged, with a group of friends, on a bunch of cushions on an expansive rug. Palm trees are all around us, and some of their roots make up natural chairs with arms. We are all singing "happy birthday to you" to Tracey. It is August 2002 and I am travelling around Egypt. I have hooked up with seven other people, two English Girls, two English brothers, and two Spanish girls. We are currently in Dahab, in the Sinai region of country, on the coast of the Red Sea - Literally, as we are sleeping in beach huts. Even at 10:30pm the air is humid and stifling. It blows off the desert like a hair-dryer is constantly blowing into your face. The firmament is spread out above our heads like a majestic tapestry from a Yeats poem. It is one of the English girls, Tracey's, birthday. We have clubbed together and got her a snorkel and asked the owner's of the campsite to make a birthday cake. This actually turns out to be a banana and chocolate crepe with candles and sparklers set into it. Someone has kindly written 'Hapy Day Tracey!!' on it. Across from where I am sitting I can see on the far shore the lights of Aqabar winking in the night. I am yearning to go and visit Jordan - and to Petra and I make a silent promise do just that...
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