PETRA!!!!!

Today was PETRA!!!!! Oh my goodness I can’t even explain in words how amazing it was! When we left the hotel I didn't realize how close we really were! I thought that we would have to get on the bus and ride to it but in all actuality all we had to do was walk down the street and we were at the park! It was freezing cold cause it had rained all night but we were hoping that it would warm up later! When we finally got to the park it takes a while to get in! We walked through these beautiful gorges and saw some of the tombs and stuff! It was quite a long walk but it was beautiful! At one point there were a ton of puddles as so we were watching our feet to make sure not to step in them. When I looked up I literally stopped in my tracks because all I could see was part of the treasury through the wall of the gorge! It took my breath away! I couldn't even believe what I was seeing! It was sooo much bigger then I could have ever imagined and it was absolutely beautiful!! After that they let us go and we had about 3-4 hours to just explore on our own!

This was a tomb of some sort on our way into the park

The treasury! 

Does this remind you of any movies??

A group of us decided that we wanted to walk up to the monastery because we thought it would be cool! On our way we got distracted by some ruins (How often can you say that?!?!?!) so we stopped and took some pics and then we were on our way. 

Eden, Ben, Me, and Montana!

Sarah L, Jacque, Ben, and Eden

As it turns out, the high to the Monastery is over 800 steps up the side of this mountain! Dude is was terrible especially since I am super out of shape. But, in the end, It was totally and completely worth every second! I was basically dying by the time we made it to the top and I was trying so hard not to give up on myself when I turned around the corner. As soon as I turned around and saw the monastery I forgot everything and was literally in awe! It HUGE!!! And super amazing! I can’t even describe in words how amazing it is in person! I mean when you see pictures you think oh wow that is pretty big and pretty cool. As soon as you see it in person that is when it is really put into perspective! I never would have imagined in a million years that I could have been there experiencing that! I look back at my pictures and I still can’t believe that it actually happened!

SOOOOOOO MANY STAIRS!!!!

Look at how tiny those people are compared to the Monastery!! That is all one piece carved out of the rock!!

Inside!!!

After the monastery we went to this lookout point that was maybe about another two minute walk up this “hill.” It was called the Top of the World and it totally felt like you were on top of the world! It was BEAUTIFUL! 

After that we were all starving so Ben, Kate, and I decided to head back down and get lunch. We hiked all the way down and on our way we had to basically avoid the beduwin women cause they were trying soooo hard to get us to buy something.

Lunch was great…except for the chocolate stuff. There was this amazing chocolate pudding when we first got there and when it was out we were all waiting for them to bring more out. Well instead of the chocolate pudding they brought out this chocolate sponge stuff. Since the pudding was soooo good we all loaded up on this other stuff. As it turns out…not so great! Haha Ben’s face can definitely attest to that!

After lunch we went exploring. There was an old temple that we decided to go explore and guess what we found…secret stairs!! So there was no ceiling because it had collapsed but we found these stairs that lead up to this platform that was pretty cool! Of course because I am terrified of heights I didn't enjoy it as much as others but it was pretty awesome! After we had been up there for a while brother Judd showed up and told us to get down cause apparently that was probably breaking rule #3 (don’t do anything stupid)! It was pretty awesome I’m not going to lie!

From Below

From up top

After that we decided we wanted to go see the royal tombs. We didn't have a ton of time but we walked up there and looked at them for a little while! They were beautiful!I really wish that we could have spent more time in Petra because it was really amazing and beautiful! The tombs were beautifully carved out of the side on the mountains!

Me,  Kate, and McCall

After the tombs was my absolute most favoritists part of the day!!! So we were walking back to the treasury so that we could ride a camel and take pictures there. as we were walking there were a bunch of people offering to give us camel rides back. They costed a lot so we weren't really willing to! Well then this guy said we could for Three Dinar (which is about $4.50) and we thought ya that would be worth it! So we worked out with the camel driver to take us to the treasury and take pictures of three dinar. We were sooo excited!! Ben and I rode one and Katie and McCall rode the other! IT was awesome! It was kinda freaky when it stood up because I thought I was going to fall off! I think it wouldn't have been so freaky if I wasn't so scared of heights (or I guess more falling off)! But it was waaayyyy fun!! I would do it again in a heartbeat! The thing that bothered me the most was that when we got there he wanted to charge us another 2 dinar ($3) to take pictures. We tried to say that he said we could take pictures but it was a no go. We had gotten a couple of each other while we were on the camels but we didn't get any super good pictures! It was kinda sad but still totally worth it! And we got a couple pictures at least! That is better than none!

After this, with our ticket, we got a free horse ride out of the park! It was neat!! We had to walk through the gorge to get to where the horses would take us but it was really cool! We got to ride them a pretty good while too which was kind of nice! Amber and I got to ride together which was super fun! After a little bit of window shopping it was time to get back on the bus and get ready for another really long bus ride.

Right on our way out out bus all of a sudden! it was kinda cool because Brother Jackson wanted to stop at this spring. It is supposed to be the spring that came from the rock that Moses struck. It was really neat! There was this giant rock and just the spring. it wasn't anything big but it was kinda cool!

As it turns out a little into our ride we stopped at this crusaders era castle which was pretty cool! We even got our one and only picture of the group to date! It was kinda neat! Then we spent another 4ish hours on the bus! Yay for long bus rides! I guess It is a good thing that I have taken so many long car trips cause those rides didn't feel super long!

We finally got to Amman at about 7ish! It was a really nice hotel! It was The Belle Vue Hotel – Amman! It was really nice! It was actually kinda funny cause when we got there they gave our keys because that is how you use the elevator. When we were standing there waiting for the elevator me and Rachel where talking to Miikel and John asking them where they were and they said they were in the room next to us! I was kinda shocked! That definitely doesn't fit with the BYU housing standards haha. Well as it turns out our rooms where connected! They had a door in-between the two so we could talk to each through the doorway! It was kinda funny! Of course we made sure to stay in our own rooms but it was fun!

Dinner was super nice and super delicious! Then a bunch of people decided to go out to Rainbow street which is where everything near our hotel is but I decided that we would have the next night to go out so I stayed up in my room trying to get the internet to work (which never happened! Haha). It was an awesome day though!! One that I will never ever forget! Petra was worth every moment and I wish that we could have spent more time there!