First day in Petra

Petra, which is understandably on nearly everybody's itinerary through Jordan can be quite arduous for short legs, so we opted to reduce the amount of walking and rented stallions to take us down to the entrance of canyon. The whole posse assembled for a shot.

Kids rode with adults, of course, and the horses walked nice and slow.

Malo loved riding a horse (don't ask how we got on).

From the entrance of the Siq (canyon) into Petra, it's a bit of a crowded walk depending on the hour of the day or if you've hit the entrance at the same time as a busload of German/French/Chinese tourists (few anglophone groups, really).

In the less crowded parts, the kids ran and generally had a blast.

"Dude, if you want to be a prince, you're going to have to get better at climbing"

Lucie putting the moves on her little friend while Leo pretends not to see what's going on.

Malo also averted his eyes. He travelled in style.

 The arrival at the end of the Siq, with the view of the Treasury.

Slowly revealing itself as you enter.

and finally appreciated in its full glory

It's truly something, but Malo thought it'd be more interesting to chew his wrist.

 A little further down, we rested, ate, and drank.

Leo generously offered to relieve Gregoire in carrying Malo (he'd do this a lot over the course of the vacation) while the girls goofed off.

A little down from the Treasury, there are a bunch of tombs (mostly Petra is tombs) carved into the rock.

Some of the tombs contain numerous funerary niches - it's not clear if that's how they were originally built or not.

There's also a giant theater, which you can't climb into, in theory, though that didn't stop Jordanian teenagers from doing it. In general, rules are only loosely enforced, and people just do what they want. This is both a good thing (it's not so rigid as in some places) and a bad thing (the antiquities can be damaged).

We explored some other tombs along the valley, all pretty of the same style as the Treasury, but not as well-preserved.

We had to do a significant of walking, and Lucie proved herself to be pretty close to the superhero she's convinced she is (superpowers: run really fast, scream really loud - no joke!).

We stopped in an empty tomb for lunch, and the kids played in the shade while we ate peanut butter sandwiches and leftovers (extremely soggy - you try carrying baba ganoush in a paper plate covered with tinfoil down a canyon) from the previous night's dinner.

One of the things about Petra is that the rocks are truly stunning once of the outside oxidized layer is stripped off, and the layers below show.

After lunch, we decided to take our chances and to stay down in the valley while Ben and Jutta took their 2 kids back to the hotel to look for the (still under construction, it turns out) pool.

We walked to an out-of-the way-tomb. How out-of-the-way? Just see if you can see us in the photo below (blow it up by clicking on it).

We took advantage of being by ourselves there (a rare priviledge in Petra) to take a family shot.

Malo enjoyed being out of the carrier.

After hanging out at the tomb for a while, we got talked by a local beduin to let him take us out of Petra through another exit. It was a bit of a crazy idea, but Leo speaks a bit of Arabic, and the guy spoke good English and we all felt comfortable.

So Michele and Lucie got on the Mohamad's donkey...

and we were off! with a crazy plan to climb 1/2 of the way up the mountain that you see in this photo - we didn't quite realize it as we set out, but that's where we were going. You can make out the road on the blown up photo if you're keeping score at home.

Mohamad guided the donkey up some pretty crazy hills.

At times, it got too hairy/slippery and the girls had to get off. Leo carried Malo for a bit as well and Lucie was a champ - loving the donkey, charming Mohamad, and walking when needed.

We stopped in a canyon for some shade, as it was pretty hot (but not brutal, which is why we could do this in the first place).

The canyon, called the "little Siq" is an alternate way in/out of Petra, and has some niches in the walls were long-ago pilgrims would have left offerings for statues.

On the outskirts of the protected area, we passed by some tombs that are clearly haunted, at least by blue plastic containers.

As we neared the top, we went up a rocky gully. The fun never stopped.

All in all, it was stunning scenery that cameras can't really do justice to, and we really enjoyed being off the beaten path.

Petra kitchen

After a night in Dana, we headed south to Petra, where we had signed up for a cooking class at a local cooking school, with the children. We arrived to find that the crowd was definitely in the 50-70 range instead of 3-5. Nonetheless, we managed to keep the kids busy and interested, and the Jordanians' amazing kindness with kids came through to make the evening hectic but enjoyable.

Lucie started the evening at the pastry-making session, where they made a mess and had good fun with Michele. In the background is our friend Ben and his youngest son.

Sampling the cheese prior to applying it... (notice the guy playing with Malo in the background)

Malo got some personalized baby-sitting attention from the dishwasher.

 Next Lucie moved to my station, where we were preparing baba ganoush, among other things. She sliced tomatoes, but only after I told the teacher that she could use a real knife (he'd handed her a butter knife, and she nearly cried...)

Then we peeled the eggplants prior to chopping them.

As Crocodile Dundee once said: "THAT's a knife"

After that, Lucie got to stir the mixture, witch style!

Ready for a good meal!

Dana biosphere reserve

The Dana biosphere reserve is one of several parks set up in Jordan under the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature. While this sounds all grand and lovely, there is trash strewn everywhere and things have a wide margin of progression.

That said, the views from our comfortable cliff-side lodge were stunning. The staff was helpful and very nice, including with the kids. The availability of high chairs was a nice break from Paris.

We arrived from Al Karak shortly before sunset.

In the morning, we saw the canyon in daylight, and realized that it's at least 600 meters deep, possibly more.

 Lucie and Malo considered making a daring escape down the canyon, but decided against it.

 Instead, we all went for a walk through the mostly-abandoned village of Dana, were ruins of Ottoman era buildings are being renovated as bungalows for an upscale hotel that will provide work to local residents.

We wandered out of town and through the abandoned fields where we found trees laden with over-ripe pomegranates and fig trees. Several channels brought water to different places in the hillside.

Lucie and her friend caught sight of a beetle.

Trauma can be a bonding experience...

We also ran into a baby donkey, only 3 days old we were told, with his ears tied up to encourage them to stick up. 

Note the superiority of the donkey parent over the human parent (and the superiority of the human baby over the baby donkey): the baby donkey walks, while the human baby is a sleeping log.

The Crusader Castle of Karak

We just returned from 12 days in Jordan, visiting our friends Leo and Christina (+baby daughter) and their friends Ben and Jutta (+2 sons). We drove all over the country and had a great time, no small thanks to a little help from our friends. 

We were on the road our first morning in Jordan. Lucie immediately started looking for sand dunes and camels.

It turns out that deserts are not all sand dunes all the time, sadly.

Our first stop was the ancient crusader castle, Karak or Al Karak.

 We toured the castle.

The kitchen of the Crusader part of the castle

A barracks for the rank and file.

When the Turks conquered the castle, they built a mosque in it.

We listened attentively to our guide.

We took funny pictures of the kids.

We stopped for a snack in a bit of shade.

Leo, our friend, host, and guide in Jordan, holding Malo while Greg snapped some photos.

A quick diaper change in the rough. Malo's an all-terrain baby.

Dad doing his best "donkey-man" routine. Notice how green the background is - the Karak valley is rather lush considering how dry things are just a few miles away.

Then it was back on the road as we headed to Dana Nature preserve

As we drove away from Al-Karak, the landscape gor drier and drier.

 Until we were once again in a desert. This transition occurred in only about 20 miles.

First photo from Jordan

We'll be back in Paris soon, but here's a photo of the whole family at Petra. We'll be back soon with a full report.