Next morning we got up real early for our trip to Petra, the rock carved city from Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail. The night before we were told that we should just hook it and get to the opposite end so no one would be there so we could have the monastery to ourselves. Oh how we went. Lucky we brought 3lt of water in the backpack to make it really heavy.
“Mika, we should have brought more water I am really thirsty.” Hannah pointed out as I labored up the rocky mountain trail carrying everything in my backpack. I soon got used to it though and after walking at a cracking pace for about 1.5hrs Hannah called for a stop to ‘admire the view’, so I kindly gave her a turn of the backpack.
“What the hell have you put in here!?” Hannah cried furiously, “Drink some damn water!”
“I told you it was heavy but you didn’t think of that when you were getting cranky at me for not buying the 3rd bottle of water.”
It was at this point that I realized why all the women in the Arab countries walked stooped over so much. Hannah was bent over double, panting with exertion, hands behind her back, cursing every few meters and when not cursing muttering. I on the other hand without my burden bounded beside her yelling words of encouragement, between my skips.
“Hannah look over here at this cave, oh wait you don’t look so good, your really red and your stumbling, look out for that rock!” as she stumbled into a rock face. “Hey don’t worry though in a little bit you get used to it and it becomes like normal and also you will have drunk some water and it will be a lot lighter.” I followed up this observation by running around her in circles.
“Piss Off!”
I took pity on the poor soul after 5 minutes though and carried it the rest of the way up to the monastery.
The monastery was seriously amazing and our hard slog was worth it because we had the place virtually to ourselves.
There was a no climbing sign so I climbed to the top and it was really good looking at all the suckers below. I took about 170 snaps and then ambled back to the entrance looking at everything else.
In the end we did all of Petra in half a day, but we didn’t sit down the whole time for more than about 5 minutes to give some peanuts to some Bedouin kids. We were so exhausted when we got back we slept 4hrs, woke, had dinner, and then slept for 12hrs. It probably hadn’t helped that we had both been sick the previous 4 days and because of traveling hadn’t really eaten because we were scared we would need the toilet on our 6hrs bus trips. Trips mostly without toilet stops.
Before sleeping that night we had some music on and there was a Turkish boy studying his map diligently and when Hannah left he asked, “Do you have some Cat Stevens?”
“Yeah sure mate.” So I changed the music to some Soul Train.
Hannah walked in took one look/listen, “Mika what the hell is this? Put something good on.”
“Ummm Hannah…. It is good.”
“Mika what are you? From the 60’s?”
“Stacey.”
She turned to the Turkish map boy, “do YOU like this? I bet not, See Mika he is cowering under his sheets because he doesn’t like it.”
“Stacey!”
“Stacey doesn’t like Cat Stevens.”
I just groaned and to extricate ourselves let Hannah cut my hair so Map boy could listen to his Cat Stevens in peace.
It was a costly decision though as now I am sporting a nice flowing Mullet. Good for flicking and keeping the flies from the back of the neck but not much else. It baffles me how she will force me to grow a hideous mullet but somehow won’t even consider a some what dashing hairy upper lip. I mean all the Arabs are doing it and they are real smooth looking and seem to have at least 1 wife, if not 4 along with claiming they all have 5 girlfriends. They must be doing something right.