When we left Rajef, we were driven to Wadi Musa (the "gateway" town to Petra - little more than a town full of cheap hotels and internet cafes, but still quite fun. Interestingly Wadi Musa ("Valley of Moses") is where Moses is supposed to have struck a rock and produced water - there is even a shrine or somthing to mark the spot) and checked in to the Valentine Inn. We were not best impressed with this place, but I will not go into the reasons here, there are plenty of scathing reviews in guides such as the Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide. One of these, I forget which one, even gives the Valentine Inn a little red box expressly warning visitors against it. We had mattresses on the roof top as this was by far the cheapest option, although it was not, as you might expect, the most comfortable. However, I am a firm believer in the theory that if you are tired enough, determined enough, and un-precious enough, you can sleep anywhere. And so I did. We got up at 5.30am in order to be at the ticket office to Petra before it opened at 6. We were, and 6 came and went, and the ticket office did not open. It eventually opened at about 6.20, and we stormed along the siq, past the treasury, virtually ignoring everything, determined to get up the mountain to the monastery (in the picture for this entry) before it got too hot, and before thousands of other tourists arrived. Success. It was hot before we reached the top, and it was a very tiring climb, but we made it, and the area around the monastery was virtually abandoned when we sat down to eat our packed breakfast. On to a terrifying viewpoint, where I nearly died of fear, but no one died in the end.

After an expensive lunch (our packed lunch was approximately the most un0desirable thing in the world by the time we were hungry, as it had got so hot and squashed and melted and bleurgh), we ended up in 2 or 3 different groups. One group climbed a "secret staircase" behind the royal tombs, said to be a bit like the terrifying steps up to Shelob's lair in Lord of the Rings (forgive the numerous LOTR references - it was a running theme and we each had character names from it. If you're interested, I was Saruman, because I could talk to the Orcs), walked around a bit, phoned me to get me and the others to wave to them from the bottom - success - and then found themselves balanced precariously over the top of the siq. My group took it easy. We sat in a shady shop/cafe for about an hour, and the owner very accomodatingly didn't mind us sipping out cold water impossibly slowly. We then went to look at the church with the mosaics, the temple of the winged lions, the blue church, and some portaloos with a friendly man running a stall nearby. If there was a third group, I don't know what they did.

Shortly before closing time (about 5pm) we re-convened at the royal tombs and decided what to do. We had ascertained that we would not be kicked out of the site, so those of us who still had some energy (I think about 6 of us) walked up to the high place of sacrifice. It took quite a long time to get there, and we met a very adorable cat on the way, who gave me a cuddle (I checked for open cuts first, don't worry) and then followed us on up the mountain for a bit, but we arrived just in time to watch the sun set, sitting with our feet dangling over the cliff edge, drinking tea with a bedouin man whose name I've forgotten.

When we finally got back to the hostel, a ridiculous taxi-ride later, our military escort had arrived, and they had problems. It was stupid, but there was nothing we could do - they weren't allowed to stay in the hostel because they were from the army and didn't have permission to stay in a public place, so would have got in trouble. Why they didn't make sure they had their permission before they set out to come and get us, we will never know, but they got there and didn't have it, and the hostel wouldn't let them stay. Many hours of infuriating conversations in circles and phone calls to mystery people, and they eventually went to sleep in the vans. And I went to have a shower. Everyone else had got through the one tiny bathroom by the time I got there, as they had not been involved in the stupid negotiations downstairs, so I got straight into the bathroom. I had just dampened my hair when the water went off, and I had to go to bed grubby. Again.

In the morning, we were ready to leave at 8, which was when we had agreed with our drivers. But they weren't there, and the truck and bus were not where they had been the previous night. We rang them. They were in the police station. They didn't think to tell us they hadn't been arrested - turned out they'd been picked up by the police, who gave them comfy beds and a good breakfast, but at the time we thought they'd been arrested and we'd never make it out of the Valentine Inn.