I will blog about the rest of Jordan in time of course, and about the whole Petra trip, the good and the bloody awful, but for now , its all about sitting on top of Petra :)
The day before Malika had met two local guys who she was sure they were lovely. I was extremely doubtful due to my own misfortunes the day before (I will get to that in another post) Malika said the guys wanted to take us to a secret spot and show us the real Petra. Of course I thought they were big baddies, and were just out to harm us, but I decided to trust Malikas instincts. After all she had spent the day before and the evening with these guys and she was fine, I on the other hand had been making police statements.
Donkeys and Horses were a big part of Petra. Now for some reason I found Donkeys to be okay, but horses im bloody terrified of. Dont ask me why, I honestly have no valid reason to be. The guys turned up with a beautiful big white horse and told me the horse was for me. I had two broken ribs, so I was struggling to walk and climb, so they had arranged this horse for me. How lovely, apart from the fact I was shitting bricks about going near this beautiful creature. I soon gave in and sat on the horse and man was it a terrifying ride. I cant explain it apart from walking up the steepest, most un even, dangerous steps and cliff tops in history, sat on a horses back, being tilted back at a 90 degree angle. The guys could not stop laughing at my screams with every bump and sharp turn the horse took. We stopped at various points to take photos which gave me a wee break. The horse was not in any way happy about these breaks though, every time I went to get back on him he would edge away from me a bit. Im telling you, my life was in danger, the horse hated me and I hated the horse !
After an hour or so we reached a cave. It has some Matts and cushions on the outside area, which was made into a comfy seating and rest area for us. We tied the horse up and the guys said we would have tea with his friend. A man with long dreadlocks, no teeth and barely any English stepped out of this gave and welcomed us to his cave. I was feeling a bit uneasy but we sat down and soon the conversation started flowing in broken English and Arabic. The man, I have no idea what his name was, went on to tell us that because he is in a very remote area of Petra he does not get many tourists and it was wonderful to meet us. He invited us for a tour of his cave, his home. It was about 5 meters by 3 meters, so a pretty small home. He had a few photos on the wall of him with tourists.
He showed us his 'Kitchen'. Basically a small camping stove and a knife with a few plates, that was his kitchen.
He then showed us his 'bedroom', the other side of the cave, the very small cave, was a few mattress's stacked up against the wall, and some duvets, that was his bedroom. Here Malika is sat in the Bedroom area, everything in this cave was very basic, but pretty comfortable. Im sure I could of stayed there a night or two, but not forever.
His 'living room' was the middle of the cave where he had laid out matts and cushions on the floor, we later ate dinner in this living room. No sofas, no flat screen tv, it was pretty cool though, going back to basics.
His 'bathroom', he was very proud of. He took us round the back of the cave and pointed to the open space. That was his bathroom. We sat around drinking tea and talking of our experiences in petra already and my bad experience the day before. We talked about the rest of Jordan and our love for falafal and humous. In broken english all 3 guys asked us about our home countries and our life's, we happily told them and told them basic stories. The man who's cave it was spotted my silver bangles on my wrist. He had a few on his wrist and he asked me if I would like to swap with him. I swapped a bangle with him, and I still wear it now.
Cave man invited us to stay for food. We agreed and asked if he needed any help but he declined our offer and popped into his cave kitchen. He chucked some tomatoes, vegetables, chick peas and baked beans into a pot with water and seasoning and let it cook for half an hour then invited us into the living room. We all sat down cross legged around this small camping stove and waited to be given plates. Cave man decided as he only had 3 plates he wouldn't give any of us plates and that we would all eat out of the pan. Fine by us, we were more than happy to embrace his culture and way of living. Cave man pulled out some kind of flat bread from a plastic bag and warmed it up with a powerful lighter. The bread was warm but tasted of gas !
After dinner we set off on the last 30 minutes of our hike, I jumped back on the horse. Yay ! We went through some very steep narrow trails before I had to get off the horse and climb some very dodgy rocks to get to our last place. All I can say is the pain of being on that horse, bouncing up and down with broken ribs, and the fear of being on the horse and thinking I was gonna die the whole time was definitely worth it. We had reached the most beautiful place ever. We had reached the point where barely any tourists go, definitely not on their guided tours. We were sat on top of the world ! It was amazing. We stayed here for a good few hours, playing with a small ginger kitten that definitely had fleas. We watched the sun set over petra, then we had the terrifying walk down the cliff's in the dark. I decided to walk it, I felt safer !
Can you think of a better place to sit, watch the sunset, drink tea and relax ? We smoked shisha and the guys we were with made us bracelets out of cotton in the Jordanian flag colors. It was a lovely day, I have wonderful memories of the whole day and night. These great guys made me feel so welcome, to safe, so happy and they said we are welcome to go visit any time again. I would love to. Whos up for it then ?
I hope my post will inspire you to go to Jordan, go explore Petra and experience the hospitality of Jordanians and Bedouins. This little cave was very cool, you can see from the photos its decorated in warm colours with wall hangings, comfy cushions and matts. Everything is basic, but there happy, no iphones, no laptops etc, maybe thats the way life should be ?
Looks like an amazing experience, I'm so jealous! I wish I'd travelled more before Dom - when he goes to uni I can start in earnest ;) I have to say that was one chilled out cat, too. If you'd done that to Mooch he'd have ripped your arms off!
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