The Mysteries of Egypt

There’s a reason for the name of the Panorama Hotel.   When I look outside, there is still a trace of sunrise coloring the sky.   Petra is right there! Today will be a very different treat!   After breakfast will be taken to meet Mohammad (yes, another one!).   Along the way we stop for a fifteen-minute toilet break.   But it’s at a market place, so it becomes a forty-minute stop!   All the girls are wrapped up in traditional scarf head dresses, complete with kohl eye-liner!   We are stunning!   And the young men are all charming Jordanians.   One wants to know if I’m single and can I wait while he calls his father, who is also single! There are lots of pretties!   Aventurine jewelry, pillows, magnets, clothing, hanging lamps, on and on!   For once I escape with empty hands!   Finally we’re off to Mohammad who is a Bedouin and will take us in the four by four, for a tour of Wadi Ram.   Wadi me...

In order to get from our room on the 6th floor, we have to take the elevator UP to the 11th floor and go across to another elevator which we take to the 2nd floor!   It’s not really any easier than it sounds;   but it makes sense when you realize that the hotel is kind of built into the mountain.   There’s a breakfast buffet that is supposed to open at six o’clock, but doesn’t quite.   We’re among the first ones in the door because Ammar is picking us up at 7:00.   He doesn’t want us caught up in the crowds nor out in the mid-day heat. He drops us off at 7:15 and our guide for the site, Mohanned, is there to meet us.    Before we set off I ask Mohanned to show me how to tie my head gear!   He gets our tickets and see us to our horse-drawn carriages for the first part of the tour, through the siq. He runs behind us and doesn’t get there must after us.   We all meet at the Treasury, which really doesn’t have anything to do wi...