Day Two Petra

Petra is outstanding. Built primarily by a group of people called the Nabateans, then added to by Romans, you enter on foot or carriage via the Siq (a narrow gorge, at time 5 metres wide with walls hundreds of metres high). After about a km you glimpse the most famous landmark of Petra, the Treasury. I spent the day discovering the sites on my own as well as with a guide for a few hours.That evening I drove on to Wadi Rum, a desert area in the south of Jordan. Here I met a Bedouin, Eid who took me to a camp in the desert where I walked in silence, watched the sunset, walked in the night around in desert awe, slept under the stars and went for a tour of the desert the next day. Was quite amazing.The Bedouin are the native nomadic desert dwellers from all over Middle East. Tents will be set up for a period of time and their animals, sheep, goats, camels will graze in a certain area for a period of time and then move on. They are known for amazing hospitality and will always welcome people in for tea and conversation if possible.I met quite a few Bedouin while travelling. These days many are settled into towns and have given up the namadic lifestyle, though consider themselves Bedouin before any other nationality. I was tempted to compare their situation of blending in with their community seemingly successful with the Aboriginal situation in Aus, though if I am honest with myself, I really do not not know enough information from either side of the fence to comment.What seemed a little funny to me was that although the Bedouin can exist in these harsh conditions with no problems whatsoever and can navigate the vast desert with incredible accuracy, while camping, Eid received a text and jumped in his jeep and drove a couple of klms to send message and improve reception.Creating a travelogue is not my bag, though if you want to check it out, have a look at this lady's site on Jordan: http://www.jordanjubilee.com/ It has great photos on the places I've mentioned and it is much more informative than I could pretend to attempt in an hour on a Sunday morning.
Photos:
1. The Treasury (Petra)
2. Camel (Petra)
3. General Photo of Royal tombs carved into rock face (Petra)
4. The Monastery This is accessby a huge climb up a mountain. The courtyard in front of the building has been carved out of the mountain. To put things a little into perspective, the Urn on top of the building is ten metres high (Petra)
5. A random shot of rock colouring in one area of Petra
6 and 7. The Treasury (called a treasury when first discovered as assumed it would have held valuable treasures of Petra, though now known to probably been a tomb) (Petra)
8 Last Photo: This is the Village of Rum. It is where the Bedouin community have settled to a degree. It is fairly common for many Bedoiun to take off into the desert from here for a few days or months at a time. I love the way the road just ends and turns into an awesome desert.