25th February 2006 Red Sea Cruise

Up showered and breakfasted we disembark and sit in the coach for our trek to the wonderful Petra, ancient city of the Nabateans and over 2000 years old.
Sam our tour guide for the day was very informative, but walked too fast so we eventually lose him.
We walked down through the old city of As-Siq through a chasm with the rocks towering above us and the water channels running alongside us.
The first sudden view of Al-Khazneh the Treasury built in 1 B.C. at Petra is even more stunning than I remembered. It is carved into the rock and is nearly 43 metres high, and 30 metres wide. We spent some time admiring it and looked at the newly dug out lower floor which had not been discovered back in �97 when Andrew and I were last here.
We walked all the way down taking in the Royal Tombs, the Roman Theatre as it seems to be called now and down the Colonnaded street where they are rebuilding the walls and shops that used to be there. The Nymphadium is above the wall and stones lie numbered ready to put back in place. Jordanian trees are being replanted and a 1st � 6th century church has been newly excavated. The temples cut into the rocks glow pink in the sunshine. We sat at a �cafe� and drank some excellent Turkish coffee, then Andrew haggled for two lovely bracelets for me. Both are silver, one with turquoise insets and the other with lapis lazuli.
I could go on forever, I love Petra! When our time was all too soon up we took a camel ride back to the Treasury, the steepest part of the journey. My camel was slapped across the rump and took off like a rocket! I couldn�t believe how fast it went, jiggling about that high up was no fun I can assure you!
At the top it was time to have a late lunch at the Crown Plaza, a 5 star hotel on the outskirts of As-Siq. We ate a stunning Arabian meal. I saved some incredible lamb stew to feed the starving kittens which were gazing in the window meowing at us. They certainly enjoyed it, and we sat with them whilst having coffee later.
We got treated to more Arabs playing drums and bagpipes and dancing on the way back to the coach, we didn�t have this experience on our last trip here!
Back at the ship we had time to wash the red dust off before dinner. We went to the sun lounge bar for a pre dinner beer then into the Lido again for an Indian Buffet dinner. Afterwards a walk round the promenade deck to see Aquaba all lit up at night, and on to Horizons for a night cap before bed.