Trip to Petra

After having put it off for several years after the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement, I at last made the pilgrimage trip to Petra like all good Israelis.

The one-day trip to Petra from Eilat is OK for people who can afford only to have short vacations.  You spend a full day and pay hefty border-crossing fees just to see ancient Petra for two hours.  Ancient Petra has enough stuff to keep you exploring it for hours, and several people prefer to sleep overnight in one of the hotels in the newer part of the city.

Speaking of the newer part of the city, one of the things they don’t tell you is that the city has some very steep roads.

When planning the trip to Petra, S. and me inquired and found that the logistics (low frequency public transportation and border opening hours) make it mandatory to join a guided tour if we want to accomplish it in a single day.  We registered for the tour operated by Desert Eco Tours, even though it was a bit more expensive than tours organized by other operators.  It was indeed well-organized – we got across the border in the morning without undue waiting in queues.

A view of the Petra Treasury from angle not usually found in tour books and brochures:

Author: Omer Zak

I am deaf since birth. I played with big computers which eat punched cards and spew out printouts since age 12. Ever since they became available, I work and play with desktop size computers which eat keyboard keypresses and spew out display pixels. Among other things, I developed software which helped the deaf in Israel use the telephone network, by means of home computers equipped with modems. Several years later, I developed Hebrew localizations for some cellular phones, which helped the deaf in Israel utilize the cellular phone networks. I am interested in entrepreneurship, Science Fiction and making the world more accessible to people with disabilities. View all posts by Omer Zak