April 28 (Leah's)

April 28

Today Gene showed us some workout moves on his homemade TRX. He is giving us one to take with us! We then headed off to the local bus station to catch a ride to Wadi Mousa- aka Petra. It was a bit of a hassle. Gene knows that locals pay 2JD but tourists have to pay 5JD. We were at first determined to only pay the local price. But the driver wasn’t willing to take our money unless we paid the “right price”. He even had another guy pay him 5JD right in front of us and say “see, it cost 5JD”. So we gave up and paid the 5JD each.

When we got to the town we went to find our hostel. We had been “warned” by another couple that the Valentine Inn had a family dispute during their stay and they had to leave during the night. AK 47’s were shot off, and their room filled with smoke- so they and some other guests sought refuge in another hotel. So we were a bit unsure as to what we would encounter when we got there. To our surprise, there were policemen outside the hotel, and they took us to the owner. At this point I was sure we were not going to stay there and when the owner came out-he told us they were closed- thankfully, and we told him we weren’t going to stay there even though we had a reservation.

We found refuge at another hotel –Sabah Hostel, which is run by an American woman and her Jordanian husband. We got a private room for two nights, and a dorm for the last night. We spent the evening wandering around, getting some food for dinner (not so good pita and a ½ chicken) and we ate it up on the hostel roof. The roof is a really nice hangout spot and we enjoyed the cool evening air.