The route to the Monastery is uphill on stone steps carved into the rock. The climb to the Monastery is arduous. Bedouin kids all along the way will try to sweet talk you into giving them 1 JD for a few postcards. These kids run up and down the hill all day long! Where do they get all that energy? I got tired going up once! Obviously, I’m terribly out of shape. No surprise there! Ha! We saw some people take the donkey up to the monastery (JD 30. Well, JD 20 if you know how to bargain)

After a 45 minute climb, we reached up! The monastery, like most sites at Petra is carved into the rock. It was initially a temple/place of worship. During the Byzantine period it was used as a monastery (hence the name). While its not as impressive as the treasury, it is beautiful in its own right. Especially given its location. It just has a single room inside.

Al-Deir

Al-Deir

Across from the monastery was a small cave through which you get a spectacular shot. I climbed up to it and took some pictures. A little girl came up to me and first demanded to see my pictures. I thought why not and tried to show her the photos I’d taken so far. She immediately snatched the camera and obviously knew how to use it to see the pictures. She took one or two and then asked me to give her 1 JD so she can buy chocolate. I sort of said its not right to ask for money and started to walk away. We usually carry snacks (crackers, chips and chocolate) with us when we travel and I felt bad for her – after all she could not have been a day over 10. I took a piece of kit-kat and walked back to give it to her. She took it, but then motioned to throw it at me if I did not give her 1 JD. I was shocked, but I just ignored her and walked away. I’m so sure that she is used to getting money from tourists and at that moment I really felt how careless tourists can be unwary and promote begging (I almost partook in this by offering her some chocolate).

The local Bedouins have converted the caves in front of the monastery into a restaurant/cafe. We warmed our hands by the fire and had a quick snack which we had brought with us. It started to drizzle and we decided it was high time we head back down. We had almost a 5 km walk back. Going down is, obviously faster. Once we were at the entrance of Petra, we called Ibrahim and he picked us up from the visitors center.

We had decided with Ahmed to visit Little Petra, but both of us we so tired that we called it off and instead fell asleep by 4 PM. It was not fatigue but mostly the throat ache and the high number of antibiotics we were consuming to keep us going. Add jet-lag to that. Ahmed was a great guide and we also became friends in the few hours we spent together. I’d recommend him any day.

I woke up at 11 PM. Still had a nasty throat-ache and now I had also continued to keep up with a bad sleeping schedule. Super! I went downstairs (where there was wi-fi) to write my journal, but instead ended up chatting with Ibrahim for 3-4 hours. We talked about religion, politics, culture, education and business over the course of 4 hours. We both agreed on some topics and had different views on others and thats what made it a good conversation. I got a chance to understand how young men in Jordan view the world. At 3:30 AM I figured it was high time to sleep for a few hours. We had a long day ahead of us and a lot of climbing and walking to do in Petra.

This post is a part of the Israel and Jordan 2008-2009 itinerary