Petra and the Wadi Rum, Jordan

One of the perks of working on a cruise ship is if I have a day off I can
sign up to escort the guest tours. The guests pay hundreds of dollars to take
these tours and I get to tag along for free! My job for the day is keeping a
head count and making sure no one gets hurt or left behind. The most recent tour I escorted was to see Petra, Jordan and the Wadi Rum. If you don’t know where Petra is or have never heard of it, (like me) you may know it from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (is that the third one?) when Harrison Ford and Sean Connery are horseback riding through the mountains and stumble upon this HUGE façade and go in search for the Holy Grail. That façade is in Petra and it is incredible. The whole thing is carved into the stone as one piece. You can’t imagine how gigantic this thing is until you are standing underneath it. The walk down to this façade, called The Treasury, is about two miles from where you are dropped off and it’s completely through the canyons of these mountains. They carved so many things into these mountains and some of the even lived inside them. I think Fred and Wilma definitely lived in Petra.

After walking back the two miles and having a nice lunch at the resort we
moved on to the Wadi Rum. This part of the tour was when we took open top jeeps into the desert to a Bedouin camp. The ride itself was pretty amazing, just driving through the desert and seeing camel footprints on the side of our path I imagine driving in sand is a lot like driving in snow so I think I would have been okay. When we got to the camp there was a red carpet laid out for us and Bedouin men playing music and dancing. There was a table twenty feet long filled with food. We sat on cushions on the ground with low tables and drank wine and ate amazing food. There were campfires built and we sat all around eating pastries and talking to the Bedouins. When it was finally time to leave my jeep was at the end of the caravan so there were no headlights to ruin my view. I have never seen so many stars in my entire life. I definitely did not want that day to end. 
I must say I felt a little guilty about clumping all of the middle east together as kind of a scary place but after seeing how completely beautiful Jordan was I know that all of those countries have their own identities. I guess realizing things like that is exactly why I wanted to come on this trip, to broaden my mind and try to be less ignorant about the rest of the world.
After another twelve hour tour I came back to the ship just in time to wash the dirt circles off my ankles and hop into my disco costume for Boogie Nights. I think at that point I was so overtired that I got slaphappy and threw it into high gear for the performance. Everyone was so amazed that I had the energy to sing and dance after that long day but I do have to admit that the 70s show is my favorite. 
Now I am on day 2 of four sea days in a row. So far I am doing okay because they keep us very busy on sea days. I play a lot of bingo and do a lot of needlepoint. Tonight I get to host a table in the Grand Dining Room and I’ve already looked at the menu and decided what I was going to have (it’s only 2pm).