*Right now we should be somewhere around Upper Pisang on the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal*
The Statistics
Number of days spent in country – 5
Cities/towns visited – Wadi Musa (Petra), Wadi Rum
Number of different lodgings – 2
Flights – 0
Bus journeys – 3
Boat rides – 0
Combi/collective/taxi journeys – 5
Days of rain – 0
The Budget
Total US dollar amount spent – $603.57
Average cost per day, per person -$60.36
Average lodging cost per night, per person – $14.29 We only stayed in one hotel (3 nights) and our 4th night was spent in the desert outside of Wadi Rum as part of a Bedouin overnight trip. We had our own room/bathroom with just a fan in Wadi Musa (Petra), which was totally fine since the temperature drops significantly at night. Breakfast was included.
Average food/drink cost per day, per person – $12.50. Breakfast was included at the hotel, and they offered a great packed lunch service for about $5 which we took with us every day to Petra, and on the day we left since we had such a long bus ride to get to Amman for our flight. During our desert trip, dinner and breakfast were included. We ate dinner out the other nights, at local budget restaurants.
The Best
Petra. It’s just awesome. This was the main reason we came to Jordan, and we were not disappointed by these ruins. It’s got a hefty price tag, but it was worth it. Do yourself a favor and spend at least 2 days exploring the site, but skip the ‘Petra by Night’.
The Treasury at Petra
The Worst
Wadi Rum and the Bedouin Meditation Camp. We kept hearing about how great a trip to Wadi Rum was, and how we just had to go and spend a night in a Bedoiun camp. I believe the words “magical” were used. Yeah, well, we didn’t get it. The deal is you take a fairly standard jeep tour of the area, then you kick back for the evening at a Bedouin style camp, have dinner, and sleep under the stars. These trips don’t come cheap. The desert was nice enough, but not much different from some of the other desert landscapes we’ve seen. Our guide was less than interactive, which was a huge bummer, and the camp itself was filthy with leftover food from the last trip rotting on the tables and counters, half-drunk water bottles strewn about in the sand, and used tissues littering the seating area.
The best part was sleeping out under the stars, which really is pretty awesome and on a clear night you can see basically the entire universe. For the price, nearly $60 per person for less than 24 hours, we just didn’t think it was worth it.
To be perfectly honest, the other major problem we had, even in the very short 5 days, was the way I (Ashley) was treated by many of the men we encountered. In the 110 degree heat, I wore long pants, and a long sleeve button up shirt the entire time. Despite this, I was leered at nearly constantly, with the exception of when we were inside Petra. In addition, many men did things like wink and lick their lips at me, or made mildly obscene comments as they passed me. All of this was done right in front of Justin, who was angered, but didn’t really know what to do to stop it. I want to point out that not EVERY man we crossed paths with behaved this way, but it was enough that I was ready to leave on day 3.
On the first day, we shared a taxi from the border of Israel, to Wadi Musa (a 3 hour drive into the desert where Petra is located) with two single girls, one of whom chose to sit in the front seat for the long ride since she is prone to motion-sickness. At one point the driver reached over to her and began to stroke her hair and her neck, and we had to ask him to pull over so she could switch seats with Justin who was with me in the back. She too was in a long skirt and long sleeved shirt. It was wildly inappropriate, and I found it very bold that he would behave this way with all of us, including Justin, in the car. We would have gotten a new taxi if we hadn’t been out in the middle of nowhere.
I was disappointed by these situations and felt a bit defeated, especially since we’d heard so many lovely things about Jordan.
The Parallel Life 