More Wonder and a Minor Accomplishment

 After much discussion with our guide and with Barry yesterday, I decided the give another hike a try. Our driver had told us it was a much more difficult hike than the one that had defeated me, but Rock said no, the path was renovated and not too scary. They both promised to hold my hand when/if my fear of heights came into play.

So, off we went. We arrived at the Visitor Centre at the main entrance to Petra and requested that Rock would be our guide again. Luckily, he was available, although we had to wait about 20 minutes because he was not scheduled to work and was still at home in bed!

When he arrived, we took a shuttle to Little Petra, the base of the Back Door to the Monastery Trail. There we had a choice to take another bumpy truck bed ride to cut off a couple of kilometers. It was a no brainer for me. 

Soon we were on the 2.5 kilometer path to the Monastery. It was usually wide and had lots of berms along the sharpest drop offs, which gave me a lot of comfort. 

There are 860 steps or almost 900, depending on who counted and it was challenging but not as difficult as I had worried it would be. 

Barry says we are "Petra Heroes".


The monastery, which is larger even than the Treasury at 47 m wide and just over 48 m high, seems to have played a social function. The area in front of it is flattened and believed to have been a gathering place. Inside, there is no evidence that it was ever used as a tomb, but perhaps a site where banquets, likely of a religious nature, took place.

I think it was more impressive than the Treasury, maybe because of its size, or that significantly fewer people were there, or because I was so pleased that I had been able to do the climb. However, there were still 11 km to walk back to the exit, retracing the route we had taken the day before. The last couple of kilometers uphill were taxing, to say the least.

We returned to the hotel and enjoyed the hot tub to relax our leg muscles.

That evening, we took a cooking class. Lots of fun and always an interesting activity for us.

We made several dishes (including a variation of baba ganoush) and enjoyed talking with other travelers and eating our creations. 





My favourite was the bread, which we will definitely make when we get home.


A good day.





Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 21, 2023 at 10:25 PM

    The monastery is definitely worth the walk!

    ReplyDelete

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