Petra

So, after some time in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem it was off to Jordan. I had met up with my dad in Tel Aviv, and we took a flight to Eilat, Israel and crossed the border to Aqaba, Jordan on foot. The border was interesting, walking across felt like you were walking through the DMZ (and I guess maybe it was a demilitarized zone) - you go through immigration and exit the gate from the Israeli side, walk across about 100 meters of barren desert by yourself, and then enter the gate into Jordan and go through their immigration. It felt kinda weird.

Once in Aqaba we just chilled at the hotel for the day. There isn't much to Aqaba, it's basically just a dinky (and seemingly poor) little town with a few 5-star hotels on the beach, so we kept mainly to the beach and just went into town for some meals and things. The beach also wasn't the greatest in the world and it was a little rocky, but the view was pretty great. I had always pictured the area just being flat desert sands, but it was actually really mountainous and the mountains ran right up to the beach, leaving just a little space for the city.

Aqaba

The huge Jordanian flag at night

The next day, we set out early on our trek to Petra. It was about a 2 hour drive from Aqaba, and I had decided to rent a car and drive myself to save some money and be able to go on our own timeframe. Acquiring the rental car turned out to be a bit of an adventure (apparently the term reservation is used very loosely there), but we were able to get one the night before and leave the hotel at around 6:45am. After the 2 hour drive on the Desert Highway and through the mountains we made it to Petra and started the hike into the park.

The beginning of the park starts downhill through some small ruins (with, of course, dozens of people accosting you to buy trinkets or camel rides, etc) and eventually you come to the Siq, a 2km long narrow canyon that snakes its way towards Petra. The walls have basins dug out of them to allow water to flow toward the city and there are also some ruins and monuments along the way. The winding pathway and the patterns of colors in the rock made it a pretty cool walk. Then, when you come out of the Siq it opens up to the Treasury, which is the huge facade carved out of rock that is the typical image of Petra (and also in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). I had obviously seen the pictures before, but it was pretty breathtaking in person. We continued on to see many of the other tombs and ruins (and get accosted by more vendors...) and decided to make the hike up to the Monastery, which is another Treasury-like building but on the top of a mountain. It was a rough hike in the heat, but the Monastery and the views from the top were pretty awesome. We also talked to the Jordanian guy that camped out with his little shop at the precipice, which was interesting.

The Siq

The Treasury

Dad by some ruins

The Monastery

It was a pretty awesome and pretty unique daytrip. After seeing most of Petra we headed back to Aqaba and spent the rest of the day and the next morning at the beach, and then I made the trip back across the border to Eilat for my flight out. It was supposed to be an uneventful day travelling back to Tel Aviv and then on to Istanbul, but Israeli airport security had another idea about that... In the Eilat airport when I went up to passport control the kid took my passport and gave it to his superior, who gave it to her superior, and then another guy came in to ask me some questions. I thought it was going to be the usual "where are you from", "where are you going" and "did you pack your own bags" stuff, but it turned out to be a three hour interrogation by three different people, ending in me getting all the stuff thrown out of my bags and x-rayed and me having to get down to my shirt and shorts and get patted down and searched. They basically asked me a bunch of pretty simple questions about where I had traveled previously, where I was going on my trip and some personal questions, but they asked them all in a really aggressive manner and repeated them over and over and over. Then, they made me check all my bags and wouldn't even let me get my book out so I had something to do on the flight. It was really frustrating, but they let me out just in time to get my flight (helpful travel tip - never get to the airport early in Israel. According to other people who have gone through the same thing they always just hold you until just before your flight leaves no matter how long it is) so I thought it was all over after that... and then I got to Tel Aviv, went to the other terminal to get my flight to Istanbul, started going through security and the exact same thing happened all over again (even though it had been all of an hour since I got out of the last one). This time, they even said my iPod had an "indication" so they had to check it. I wasn't checking any bags, so instead they packed it with bubble wrap in a 16in x 24in x 8 in box to send by itself. Pretty ridiculous (and how many thousands of iPods go through an airport in a day with nothing happening...?) Man I was pissed. Not only did I have to go through all of this twice over, but because I had planned to eat at the airport in Eilat I hadn't had a meal since like 24 hours before. Thankfully, they didn't keep me the full 5 hours until my flight left this time, which gave me enough time to get some food and calm down from all the hassle.

I'm usually pretty lucky with my air travel, as some of my coworkers could attest to, but that was definitely not the case this day. Luckily, it was on to a great weekend in Istanbul to make up for it... more on that later!