By admin Let me be straightforward: I despise the term “bucket list.” I end up using it a lot to describe my travels, but I don’t like anything about the phrase. The whole concept is depressing, the words don’t exactly sound nice rolling off the tongue, and the term is without a doubt an over-used cliché.
All that being said, some destinations are unquestionably bucket list trips. Those far-flung places in the world that you dream about visiting before you die. African safari, Antarctica, Maldives… and Petra. Anyone who has seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade can’t help but be stirred by the idea of a visit to Petra. It was high on my must-see travel list for 2019, and I was thrilled to finally be making the trip.
Getting to Petra
As difficult it was for us to get to Wadi Rum, the good news was that the trip to Petra was a breeze in comparison. The drive took less than two hours and the scenery along the way was mind-blowing.
We had opted to stay at the Petra Marriott. While it wasn’t walking distance to the main entrance to Petra, the hotel was perched on a cliff overlooking Wadi Musa, so the views were incredible. The drive to Petra only took about five minutes, and the Marriott offered a free shuttle several times a day. My other hotel choice would have been the Movenpick, located a short walk from the entrance to Petra, but it was fully booked for our dates. Oh well. The Marriott was fine, and at least this way we’d earn Bonvoy points.
Initial Visit to Petra: The Siq and The Treasury
After a quick stop in the town of Wadi Musa for lunch, we headed to the Petra Visitor Center to show our Jordan passes and get our entry tickets. We planned to spend a couple hours touring some of the sites in Petra on our own before the full-day guided tour we had scheduled for the following day. My priority for day one was seeing the Treasury, the building famously featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
A quick, high-level background on Petra: It was the ancient capital of the Nabateans, nomadic Arabs that settled in the area as early as the fourth century B.C. Sometimes called “The Rose City” because of the soft blush color of the sandstone rocks, Petra is an impressive collection of structures carved into the stone, and also features a sophisticated irrigation system. It is estimated that up to 30,000 Nabateans lived in the city at its height in the first century A.D., until the Romans captured it. Many of the structures were damaged in an earthquake in 336 A.D. and the city was eventually abandoned and forgotten for hundreds of years. It wasn’t rediscovered until 1812 and even now, less than half of the site has been explored by archaeologists. How crazy is that? There is still so much more to see.
After taking pictures of the Treasury from all angles, we headed back through the Siq to the main entrance. There were numerous people trying to sell rides on donkeys, horses and mules, but I was happy walking. The poor animals were clearly being mistreated, and I shuddered watching the drivers whipping the creatures to run faster as their feet slid on the slippery stone paths.
Next, we stopped at The Cave Bar for a couple refreshing libations. Allegedly the oldest bar in the world, the venue was located just outside the entrance to Petra, so it was the perfect spot to rest before heading back to the Marriott. The driver that had taken us to Wadi Musa had given us his phone number, so we messaged him to pick us up, and mere minutes later, we were back at the hotel.
Dinner at the Marriott
Because David and I both had Marriott elite status, the hotel offered us one free dinner, so we decided to take advantage on our first night. Before dinner, I worked on some travel planning in my room, while David proceeded to make some friends who were also staying at the hotel. Brittany and Brett were a couple from LA celebrating their first wedding anniversary. With my immediate travel plans arranged, I met the crew for drinks, which turned into a massive dinner as the restaurant brought out plate after plate after plate of food.
Brittany and Brett had also arrived at Petra that day, and planned to spend two nights. They showed us pictures from their donkey ride earlier in the day and I silently judged them. Despite that questionable decision, they were nice enough, and it was fun to hang out with people other than David. Brittany and I bonded over our love for travel and wine; they were stopping in Istanbul on their way back to the States and staying at the Four Seasons at Sultanahmet, where I had stayed for part of my visit to Turkey (both Four Seasons properties in Istanbul were excellent if you missed that post).
One comment about the Marriott – the manager and staff there seemed overly concerned with ensuring we were happy. At one point, the manager audaciously approached me and David and requested that we leave a 5-star review for the property. “Not four stars – five stars,” he said. Ah, so that was it. They didn’t actually want us to be happy, they were just scared we would leave them a bad review. I found the vibe a little sleazy, but knew I wouldn’t take the time to leave a review regardless (except on my little-read blog, of course).
Returning to Petra: The Big Day
The next morning we wanted to get an early start for our full day tour of Petra. The Marriott had set us up with a guide and a driver; we met our guide in the lobby and all got into a 4×4 to head to the back entrance to Petra. While most people enter into the Siq, as David and I had the previous day, I had read that it was possible to start from the back if you had transportation. The drive was quite treacherous (seriously – take Dramamine if you get motion sickness) , but this route offered a few benefits:
- We got to see the Monastery well before most people got there
- We only needed to walk through the city once, whereas the standard route required visitors to walk in and back
- We would be walking down the 850 steps from the Monastery to the rest of the city, while most people had to walk up AND down the massive set of stairs
We did have to hike an extra forty five minutes or so to get to the Monastery, but we had the trail to ourselves and the weather was still overcast and cool, so I didn’t mind. Our certified guide told us that he would be leaving us with his colleague (not certified) for the hike, then meeting us after the Monastery. We didn’t care since the hike wasn’t technically part of Petra; in addition, our guide was literally obese, and we doubted that he would be able to handle the hike comfortably.
After getting our fill of views and pictures, we told our junior guide we were ready to go, and we headed down the long path to the flat section of the city where the majority of monuments were located.
Unexpected Drama Ensues
At this point, we had made it down all the steps from the Treasury and were starting to get into the real meat of Petra, yet our certified guide was still nowhere to be found. The junior guide awkwardly tried to buy time while referring to his guidebook and reading facts back to us. After a few minutes of this, David and I lost our patience. We agreed that we’d be better off on a self-guided tour rather than following an inexperienced guide fumbling through a book. We told the junior guide that we’d pay him a pro-rated amount for his time, but we preferred to continue on our own. We weren’t going to pay someone to read to us the rest of the day.
The junior guide immediately started to panic, as I expected the senior guide would blame him if we left. I felt bad for him, and assured him that this wasn’t his fault. However, we had been promised a certified guide, we were paying for a certified guide, and we weren’t getting the service we expected. David started to grill the junior guide on the whereabouts of the senior guide. Was he off doing another tour? The answer eventually came back as: yes.
Oh no. I knew that nothing would piss David off more than the fact that this guide was double-dipping during the time that he was supposed to be spending with us. Having seen David’s temper erupt numerous times during our working career together, I didn’t want his anger to ruin our trip. At the same time, I was also pissed. This was BS. I had experienced travel with enough hard-working, dedicated, knowledgeable and engaging tour guides to know this was not acceptable. And the Marriott had recommended this guy? Our hotel that was so worried about their five star reviews? WTF.
I forked over the cash amounting to a third of the total that we had been quoted for the tour, and we went on our way, ignoring the protests from the junior guide.
Shortly after we broke off on our own, the senior guide miraculously chased us down with his mentee following closely behind him. “David, Andrea,” he said to us, “I am sorry I was late returning. I had a family emergency. I am back now.” Um, that was obviously a lie, and David didn’t hesitate to call him out on it. The guide continued to dig himself into an even deeper hole, telling us that his wife had just given birth, so he had needed to visit her. Wait, why didn’t he tell us that in the first place? He was obviously desperate to find any excuse possible. Then it got even worse. “I named my new son David. You and my son have the same name!”
David and I were both beyond frustrated with all the absurd lies at this point and didn’t hesitate to express ourselves. The poor guide was so flustered that I started to feel bad for him; just as the manager at the Marriott was scared about getting a bad review, the guide was terrified that we could ruin his reputation and hook-up at the Marriott. He pleaded with us to continue with the tour at no additional charge so he could make us happy. It was impossible to not feel empathy for this pathetic guy, so we agreed to continue on the tour, even though we also both felt like we had been screwed over.
He insisted on treating us to a mint tea (me) and Diet Coke (David) while attempting to ingratiate himself back into our good graces, but we weren’t having it. After an uncomfortable few minutes, we were back on our guided tour.
The Royal Tombs are made up of four different facades on the side of the main path through the city (right side if you’re heading from the Siq, left side if you’re heading from the Monastery).
As we walked around the area surrounding the Royal Tombs, we came across a number of vendors selling goods. One merchant insisted on wrapping our heads in a traditional Bedouin fashion with cheap Chinese-manufactured scarves. I felt rude protesting, so went along with it and gave the guy a couple dinars.
Since we had already spent a considerable amount of time at the Treasury the previous day, we didn’t need to linger for long. Our guide was still with us, desperately trying to make up for his earlier missteps, but we were over him. He did point out some details that we never would have noticed on our own, but I wasn’t impressed with his ability to tie things to an overarching story, and I couldn’t get over the skeeziness of his initial behavior. While he had offered to continue the tour at no additional cost, I ultimately gave him a tip on top of what I had already paid, and sent him on his way. The departure was awkward, as he begged us not to say anything to the Marriott about our poor experience.
The tour ended much earlier than expected given our frustrations with the guide, and the fact that we had already seen the Treasury, and didn’t need to spend an hour taking pictures from all angles. We decided to find a spot for lunch nearby before heading back to the Marriott.
It was still early in the afternoon after lunch, so we decided to check out the Movenpick Hotel for a drink. We didn’t have any plans for the rest of the day, except to tentatively meet up with Brittany and Brett again for dinner. After ordering our second round of drinks, we considered our plans for the rest of the day. I was happy to hang out by the pool and read, but David pointed out that the dining and nightlife options in Petra were extremely limited. He had arranged to get picked up at 6am the next morning to catch a noon flight out of Amman, so he was not eager to stay up late anyway. “Why don’t we just audible and drive to Amman tonight?” he asked me. “You won’t have to drive alone, we’ll have more options for dinner, and I won’t have to get up as early.”
It wasn’t a terrible idea. I had expected that we would need much more time at Petra, but we now had the entire afternoon looming ahead of us. I could always find ways to fill that time, but I also didn’t mind getting to Amman sooner. The hotel would be nicer there, at least.
I set down my Sauvignon Blanc, started filling up on water, and watched David pay our bill (it was his turn). An hour later, we were packed up and checking out of our respective rooms at the Marriott. We each had to pay for the second night, but hotel rooms in Jordan were relatively affordable and it was a cost we were both okay with absorbing. As I waited for valet to pull up with the rental car, David delivered our feedback on the tour guide. Ouch.
The review-hungry manager at the Marriott was already on edge since we were leaving early, but once he heard that we had negative feedback on the hotel-recommended guide, his insecurity skyrocketed. I could see things getting heated between him and David; the manager didn’t want to let us leave until he could ensure our satisfaction, while David was getting increasingly annoyed. I had been staying uninvolved, but ultimately stepped in and reiterated to the manager that we had no ill will toward him or the Marriott, but we simply wanted to provide feedback on the guide they recommended so that future guests didn’t run into similar problems. I was willing to give the Marriott the benefit of the doubt; however, I also wanted them to stop arguing so I could get out of town and minimize the time I’d be driving in the dark.
Finally, the car showed up, we jumped in, and I sped off. It was unfortunate that our visit ended on a bit of a sour note, but it certainly didn’t ruin the trip. If I were to go to Petra again, I would prefer to stay at the Movenpick since my experience at the Marriott was somewhat awkward, but the Marriott was not a bad option. I would also probably try to interview a few guides at the entrance to Petra before settling on one. I had trusted that the Marriott would set us up with someone of the highest caliber, but that obviously wasn’t the case. Oh well. It had still been an incredible experience, and it was time to move on.
