We weren’t really in a hurry this morning so we took our time.  On the agenda for today our second day to explore Petra was one of the hikes.  After reading through the description of some of the hikes, of varying difficulty we decided on the walk that led to a vantage point overlooking the treasury.

The path to the vantage point was just past the Palace Tomb so we retraced our path from the day before until we came to the temple.  Dad at that point decided that he wouldn’t do the hike so stayed behind at one of the little stalls and we arranged to meet him there later.

Mum and I headed off for the stairs that started off the climb.  The steps proved to be good in some places but deteriorated badly in others.  Mum did extremely well given her fear of heights and balance issues.  On the way up a guy on his way down stopped to give us encouragement letting us know that we were about 3/4 of the way there and that the climb was worth every moment.  So we continued to wind our way steadily up the cliff.

We paused at one point looking down, or at least I did, to the Theatre way below.  It was quite a good view.

We continued on, at least we tried to.  We spent about 15 minutes or so wandering around looking for the path onwards.  It was described as ‘less obvious dirt path’.  When they said ‘less obvious’ they really were not kidding!  Eventually I spied a guy walking along a little below our current position but obviously coming back from the vantage point.  So we waited and finally discovered the path.  After asking a few questions, then me doing some fast talking to mum who nearly decided to pull out at this point we went on.

The path was easy in places but required some scrambling over rocks right at the end.  Once more I had to talk mum into continuing pointing out she would be disappointed if she went all that way only to pull out when she was moments from the vantage point.  Once again mum bravely went on carefully scrambling down the path I showed her, I’d gone on ahead to find it so knew that it wasn’t far and that it really was worth it.

Eventually we made it to the lookout and it really was worth it, the view down to the Treasury really was amazing.

I even managed to get mum closer to the edge so I could snap a photo of her sitting there.  Not sure she really enjoyed getting that close to the edge but once again she managed.

Of course to get back down we had to scramble over the rocks and head back to the steps that we’d used to get here.  Its a little easier when you know where you’re going.  We made it down to where dad was waiting a little later than we said we’d be mainly due to the delay in finding the ‘less obvious’ path.  I’m really glad we did it though.  It was well after lunch and we decided to head out to one of the little restaurants we’d seen lining the streets between our hotel and the main entrance gate.

That was pretty much it since it was a little late after we finished eating to head back in so we went back to the hotel and started doing that packing thing and arranged for transport to take us back to Aqaba tomorrow so we could catch the ferry back to Egypt.