On our journey to Petra we stopped off at a couple of places along the way. Our driver, Ibrahim, took us to Dana first of all which is about 2 hours from Amman. Ibrahim is a very nice man however he speaks very little English so everything is a bit of a mystery tour. We stopped at a deserted cliff edge and Ibrahim pointed at the view and a small town that I assumed was Dana. I don't know any more about this place. A man then approached us with a tray and two cups of tea. "Please, have a cup of tea. You are most welcome." said the man. Having been in Jordan for a week already we were wise to this trick. You take the cup thinking it's someone being pleasant and then they charge you an extortionate amount for it. We asked the price first. It was 1 dinar for practically 2 mouthfuls of tea.

Jordan is an expensive country and most people turn on the charm then rip you off. Kindness is to be treated with suspicion here. The tour we booked with our hotel has been the source of many arguments with agreed prices and itineries changing at the managers will. You really need to stick by your guns and argue for everything. After a week it's getting a bit draining. Anyway, rant over for now, on with our adventure. . .

After Dana we were taken to Castle Shobak. We were the only ones there. The castle was quite big and hadn't been restored at all. It was quite fun exploring the ruins and clambering up and down the rocks. We had seen so many ruins over the past few days that they were all getting a bit samey. We were worried Petra would be just yet another ruin. After the castle we were driven to Petra (about 3 hours drive total) and settled into our new hotel for the evening.

I was very excited the following morning - finally we were going to Petra ruins. We walked down to the entrance and were a bit suprised by what we saw. No queue. We bought our 2 two day passes for 110 dinars and went though the little gate. Still no tourists. We were approached by some locals on horses offering horse rides to the ruins. They said it was included in the ticket price and showed us the sign to confirm this. The official sign said horse ride included in price but you can give an optional tip if you like. Treating kindness with suspicion we declined and opted to walk. I'm so pleased we did because what we saw next was awesome. Remember the bit in the Indiana Jones film where they enter and leave the canyon of the creasant moon? Well it really exists - about a kilometer of a narrow gorge with high cliffs either side. Every so often there was a carving or cave in the rocks. We just walked slowly through taking it all in. We possibly saw 4 other tourists - it was perfect. Then when we came to the end we saw the Treasury - the bit of Petra in all the photos. It was amazing. Just as I had hoped it would be. There were a few more tourists around, but nothing like we had seen at Macchu Pichu. Petra is huge. One of the locals told us that it's 45km all the way around. Good job we had our hiking boots on! We walked up the 840 steps to the Monastry and saw beautiful views across the desert. It's funny that we would look around and see lots of rocky hills and sheer cliffs, but when we looked closer we'd see carvings, caves, temples and tombs hidden away. We spent about 6 hours exploring on the first day. It was about 35 degrees and we were tired!

The second day at Petra was spent exploring all the paths away from the main central path. There are hundreds of caves and interesting things to see away from the main bit. You really do need 2 days there to see it all. Again there weren't many tourists. We spoke to one of the shopkeepers about this and he said that because of all the trouble in neighbouring countries, not many tourists had visited Jordan this year. Normally it's packed. I guess we are lucky. I felt sorry for him though. After another 6 hours of exploring places such as the Royal Tombs and the Place of Sacrifice (another hike up a load of step) we had seen pretty much everything and were flagging. It was well worth the visit.

Okay, that was 2 paragraphs about Petra and all positive positive positive! Now for some negatives about Petra:

1. It's ridiculously expensive. Not only do the tickets cost a lot to just get in but food and drink costs a fortune as well. A "fun" size can of Coca Cola costs nearly 2 pounds. Apparently you can pay up to 3 pounds for a litre of water in some places. Also if you want to go on a horse on the Indiana Jones route it costs 90 pounds. Rip off!

2. Preservation. Most of the caves, temples and tombs are used as toilets. Not nice clean toilets. The "go in a corner" style toilets. They smell.

3. Remember the free horse ride I mentioned earlier? Included in the ticket price they said. On the second day we actually went on the horse. No charge they said. When we got off after 5 minutes we gave them a tip of 2 dinar. Instead of thank you they started arguing with us saying we should give them 6 dinar tip. That is about 5 pounds 50 tip for 5 minutes. We refused of course. In hindsight I wish I'd have taken the 2 dinars back.

4. Treatment of animals. Not only were the horses and donkeys beaten very roughly leaving marks, they were left out in the scorching heat all day. They looked very sad. Adults were offered donkey rides. Big adults. The people looked ridiculous and the donkeys looked in pain.

5. Constantly being hassled by adults and children. Children asking for my watch. Adults asking for my hat. Buy this, special price. Ride on camel. Give me money. The list goes on.

Petra was good to see. I know I've ranted a lot about what was wrong with it but you can certainly see why it's a modern wonder of the world.

Tomorrow we go to Wadi Rum for some time in the desert then to Aqaba.

D