23rd January – Wadi Musa then off to the Desert and Wasi Rum

We spend the morning exploring Wadi Musa, the town built around the Petra tourism magnet. It’s a mix of rapid opportunistic expansion with an interesting centre that gives us some idea about how Jordanians in this area live day to day. The butcher meat is demonstrably fresh, with a Donkey heads being hung out to attract clientele

… if we had been in Sicily I would have expected horse heads… as apparently there is a market for these (Godfather J). Woolies the fresh food people might advertise their fresh barbecued chickens, but here you get to pick your chicken live before its barbecued on the rotisserie … beat that Woolies! We spring Riad at a local café in Wadi Musa smoking the hubbly bubbly.

The girls have been giving him a hard time about his smoking and adding salt to his food….telling him he’s a walking heart attack candidate.

On the way to the desert we decide we need to be appropriately attired in Lawrence of Arabia gear so we stop at the top of the mountain at this huge tourist shop, with us as the only customers (low season). The owner gladly fits us out. His laugh was worth the visit on its own…have a look at this….

In the Itinerary there is a mention of a camel ride. Geoff was expecting something like he had done before, just a quick whip around the car park and then into the Limo for our ride to our Bedouin camp experience. Not so, we are to ride these camels for an hour to our camp. Geoff and camels don’t mix well. His first one bucked around until he they had to get a replacement. The replacement had to catch up with us and also complained fiercely when Geoff approached …. I suggested it might be his camel leather shoes…but anyway have a look at my sunglass videocam (ignore date stamp...its wrong).

We were hoping for a 5 star camp like we had in India, which had a slate floor ensuite bathroom and decked out in plush decorations and deck chairs….. not quite there… but it did have a tiled shared bathroom…so not so bad.

We did have a wonderful meal prepared on the open fire….it was freezing cold though so we were in bed by 8:30pm….