April 30 (Leah's)

 April 30

 

On last day at Petra. We slept in today- until 7:30! We had another yummy, filling breakfast at the hostel and then walked again to the entrance to Petra. We visited the High Place of Sacrifice, the Royal Tombs, and a little hike up to the top of a mountain where you could view the Treasury from the top. We met a Dutch couple from the hostel that we walked a bit with. We also got to hand out some of our cookies, but it seemed like there wasn’t as many kids as the day before. I bought a headscarf from a young boy so I could have a local Bedouin souvenir. The men mostly wear the style that I bought, but many tourists go for this kind.

We spent about 7 hours today in Petra. We felt satisfied that we had seen enough and so we walked back to our hostel. We only stopped to ask directions to this place called Moses’ Spring, which is where they think Moses struck the rock and water came out. Well, we walked, and walked, I was so tired at this point- and it was all up hill. We finally got to the place and we were quite disappointed. Its not even an outside spring. You have to walk inside a little building where they have an open area in the ground where you can get water, and a big rock next to it. We were told before we got there that you could drink the water, but once we saw it, we decided not to. A local shop owner offered us some tea, we accepted before hitchhiking back to town- I was too tired to walk back. We caught a rid in the back of a pick up truck, which brought us to town.

 We got some fresh tomatoes, another ½ roasted chicken, and this time good, fresh pita for dinner. We sat up on the roof hoping to see a nice sunset, but it was too cloudy. We talked with the other backpackers and shared traveling stories- a fun part of being at hostels and traveling.

We shared the dorm with two girls. Both study in England, one is British and other Burmese (but lives in Singapore). Spencer had a deep, theological talk with the British girl. We all chatted for a while. We went to bed to try and get a good sleep before we had to take the bus at 6:30am. Sleep was interrupted by the loud (rather annoying) call to prayer at 4:30am. I think it lasted for about ½ hour or maybe that was just because I was so tired.