Day 19: Amman - Wadi Mujib - Karak - Petra (4)

The hotel we rather didn't stay in

The village of Wadi Musa lies about 5 kilometres from the legendary Nabataean capital of Petra, the best known and most visited sight in Jordan. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that this town consists mainly of hotels, hotels and even more hotels.

So it was a bit odd that the place that we had made a reservation wasn't really prepared for having guests at all. We had booked three rooms, and only one of them was actually in a state to accommodate people. The others were lacking curtains and blankets and one had a cracked toilet bowl. The reception staff was happy to offer us tea, but didn't really know how to handle our complaints, so we decided to leave and search for a new hotel.

Our taxi driver knew of a place, but this was way above our budget.

Wadi Musa

Alessandro, Derk and I ended up staying in the El-Rashid hotel. Though this place mainly caters for tour groups it proved exceptional value, with comfortable rooms, friendly staff and a good location in the 'town' centre, near restaurants, shops and Internet.

We said our goodbyes to the poor driver, who had to drive his broken car 250 kilometres back to Amman. We gave him some extra tip and wished him the best of luck. We truly felt sorry for him. Of the three taxi drivers we had experienced in this country so far he was by far the nicest, and it was just sad to see him have so much bad luck with his car.

In the evening we met up for dinner in a small place opposite our hotel, which served delicious mezze and kebabs.

We were all snug in bed by 9, exhausted of the long day, and getting ready for a very early rise to see Petra in the morning light