Petra

Well, the good news is that I am now able to upload photos at last! I took plenty today because Petra was such an amazing place and much bigger than I had realised.
We had been asked to show up for an early (6am) breakfast today but somehow I had set my watch wrong and mistakenly showed up at 5 am, thinking it was an hour later. (When word got out, I only narrowly escaped getting the 'Wally of the day' award). Osama's plan to get us into Petra as early as possible was a wise one as it helped us avoid the larger influx of other tourists later on.
The walk through the gorge to the city entrance was a little longer than I had imagined, although in fact was only about a kilometre or so, but the first sight of the Treasury building through the narrow dark rocks of the gorge was every bit as dramatic as all the publicity photos suggest.
A highlight of the morning's tour for me was getting to meet Marguerite van Geldermalsen, the kiwi woman in Petra whose book (Married to a Bedouin) I had recently read. I bought a copy of the book at her shop and am keen to read it again now that I have more context for it.
The structures of the city , both natural and man made are magnificent and I was pretty much in awe of all that we saw. I am only allowed to attach six pix here so hope the ones I choose give some new kind of sense of the place.Read more