Wed 27 December 2006

A wake-up call from the local mosques welcomed me into a new bright day at 5 o’clock. I felt a bit heavy, and soon noticed that I had fever and flu. I went back to sleep, expecting the fever to be gone in an hour or two. I seldom have fever in daytime.

I woke up again after 6 o’clock, but somehow the day seemed less bright now. The lights did not function in the room, neither in the corridor. The entire town of Wadi Musa was out of electricity, for an hour or so. I used the display of a palm computer as flashlight, and wandered to the dining room, where the cook of the hostel was serving bread and omelettes for breakfast.

The weather was cold and wet, and some of the tourists stayed in the hostel all day because of the unpleasant weather. The manager of the hostel drove me and a Canadian guy to ancient Petra, and we started walking along the Siq canyon towards the Treasury (which became famous as the Temple of Doom in an Indiana Jones movie). I was wearing sneakers (jogging shoes), but I managed to pass the 1.2 km long Siq canyon without getting wet feet.

The rain stopped soon, but the weather was still cold and windy. The wind was so strong that it was difficult to stand or walk on top of the cliffs. Most of the tourists stayed in the deep canyons, but I climbed on the cliffs with the Canadian young man, to get the best photo angles and to visit some of the palace tombs.

Petra is located on high mountains, and on cloudy weather (which is extremely rare here) the mountain tops are covered by a thick fog of clouds. As we proceeded towards el-Deir monastery, which is the farthest and highest monument of Petra, the weather became more and more foggy, and in some places the wind was so strong that every step forward required a considerable effort.

Two donkeys were carrying merchandise from the low valleys to the shopkeepers on top of the mountains, without anyone attending them. For a few dollars we would have gotten a donkey ride onto the top of el-Deir, but the Canadian guy was not interested in the offer, so I declined it too.

When we arrived on top of el-Deir, there was no more than 50 m visibility in the thick fog, and it was impossible to get a good photo of the monument. The photo above was taken from the distance of 25 meters or so — a few steps backwards would have made the entire building disappear into the fog. We were not alone here: we found three Italian women in the monastery, and more tourists were coming up when we descended back to the canyons of Petra.

Our luck with the weather changed for the worse when we were on top of the high mountains. It began raining lightly, and soon the falling water turned into ice. We were not worried about the weather — we could not guess that snow was already blocking roads around Petra, and all tourists would be trapped in Petra for two days. (Some buses got stuck in snow on the mountain road leading to Petra, and nearly a hundred tourists had to sleep overnight in their buses, before being evacuated by rescue troops next day.)

It was 11 o’clock now, and I was planning to take the bus to Amman after the noon. I had reserved a room in Tel Aviv for the next night, and a flight to Cairo for the next day. We started walking towards the lower canyons with the Canadian guy, discussing our travelling plans (which would soon change), and taking photos of the ice-covered cliffs and streets of Petra.

The Canadian guy planned to visit yet some other monuments in Petra, and we parted ways near the amphitheater. I continued walking past the Treasury and through the Siq canyon, to get out of ancient Petra.

I had lost all hope of keeping my feet dry long ago, so I did not even try to avoid the water that was flooding into the canyon. Some tourists were still trying to keep their feet dry, crawling against the walls of the canyon, and complaining whenever a drip of water entered their shoes. These poor souls would soon discover that all efforts of staying dry were doomed to fail...

When I waded through this 1.2 km long canyon, filled with water ankle deep, I can assure you that I got wet from tip to toe. But I was not the only one: there were 200 other tourists trapped behind the canyon, drinking coffee and waiting for the weather to get better. This never happened, and two hours later all the tourists had to wade through these waters (which probably were deeper by then), to get out of the canyons of ancient Petra.

I tried to find a taxi to the hostel, but all taxi drivers had left their cars and gone away. Not having winter tyres, they had no chance of driving their cars up the steep roads covered by ice and snow. Policemen and soldiers were throwing each other with snow balls, and someone was building a snowman in the middle of the street.

I walked for half an hour in the rain to Wadi Musa, and when I finally reached the hostel at 12:30, all my clothes were as wet as they possibly could be. I had no exchange clothing, however, because I had planned to stay only one night in Jordan, and I had wanted to minimize the amount of luggage that I carry around in Jordan. Many other tourists were in the same situation, and we spread our only sets of clothing near the fireplaces to get them a bit less wet.

Shivering near the fireplace in the lobby (which was the only place in the hostel that was not ice-cold), I thought that there might have been better ways of treating my fever and flu than the adventures of this day. The fever returned late in the evening, and on the following days I began to cough. This flu and cough that began in Petra lasted nearly for one month.

I enquired from the hostel manager when the next bus would leave to Amman. All buses had been cancelled, because the roads were blocked by snow, but no one knew when the roads would be open again. Snow kept falling all the time, and in a few hours it became clear that all roads would remain closed at least until the next day. I reserved a room for another night in the hostel, and the other tourists did the same, having no other choice. We spent the evening dining and chatting in the lobby, and someone went to buy beer for everyone.

Finding beer is not always easy in Arab countries. If you go to an average grocery store in a Muslim country, and ask for beer, you will probably get many shrugs of shoulders in reply to your request, until someone will share his knowledge about the smaller shops in less public places, where beer will be available. Expensive hotels and restaurants usually have beer, for a tourist-oriented price.

The manager of the hostel gave directions to a place where beer was for sale at a reasonable price, and two people went there to buy beer for all of us. They brought the local Petra Beer, which has an alcohol content of 8% — twice stronger than the average beer consumed in pubs around the world. Many breweries have difficulties with beer as strong as this: the high alcohol content tends to make the taste yeasty or somewhat bitter. Petra Beer showed no sign of such weaknesses, and its taste was as clear as any average beer with half less alcohol. The scarcity of beer in this part of the world seemed to be taking no toll on its fine quality.

I did not take a photo of Petra Beer cans, but other travellers have done so, and published their photos on the Internet. Here is a link to a photo of travellers unknown to me tasting the 8% Petra Beer. (I found this pic with the Google image search.)