It was a great day, fondly remembered....but still...
Every so often you read something and the penny drops...and you think "There but for the grace of God, go I"....whilst reading the Jordan Times this evening I found this...
Landslide blocks entrance to Wadi Musa
PETRA (Petra) — Authorities on Tuesday said a landslide was reported at the northern entrance to the town of Wadi Musa, which overlooks the ancient city of Petra. They said the road was closed and traffic was diverted to an alternative road. Public works teams started removing “large quantities of soil and rocks” that blocked the road, which is used by tourists heading to Petra. No fatalities or injuries were reported. Officials attributed the landslide to the fact the soil was still saturated with water from the flash floods that swept parts of the Kingdom earlier this month. The floods killed nine people in the southern and eastern regions of the Kingdom and resulted in the loss of shelter and livelihood as well as damaging water, electricity and transportation infrastructure.
At the end of January 2002 one of my colleagues (M) and I decided to head to Petra for the long weekend (King's Birthday)...we booked three nights down at the Nabatean Castle (Movenpick)..the first and second day we wandered through Petra...for me remembering playing there with my brother and a rather alarming horse riding incident involving my mother...On the third day M and I decided to do a little exploring off the beaten track...so consulting the trusty Lonely Planet we found a few hikes that sounded interesting...so we set off. We were told that the hike we chose would take about three hours and that it was fairly challenging...we were also told not to attempt this in winter as sudden snow fall could result in flash floods.....a quick glance at the sky...clear, blue and not a cloud to be seen and the fact that it hadn't snowed for about two weeks convinced us that we were ok to go....
Off we set...now a few things to consider...M is over 6ft...I am just scraping 5ft...I walk fairly swiftly so I can keep up...but the problems started when climbing though the wadis...some of the boulders and things we were scrambling over were about 10 feet high with 10 ft drops on the other side...usually into thigh high very, very icy water...."fairly challenging" became a mild understatement. However, we had reached the point where going back would have been a waste. In hindsight our little expedition was the height of idiocy...the water being so deep and cold meant that the hiking boots had to come off and we waded through water with sheets of ice on top...by the time we got to the end our feet were cut and bleeding and ever so slightly cold! The main reason it was stupid was that both of us underestimated the amount of snow still on the mountain, neither of us realised how narrow the wadis were when we started out....in some of them I couldn't walk straight ahead...but had to squeeze though sideways...M got jammed a few times with me having to pull (or push) depending on where I was to get him throught the gap. If we had been caught in a flash flood we wouldn't have had a hope in hell of getting out.....
In the end the walk took about 4 hours as there was so much water through the wadis....we arrived back at Wadi Mousa and walked into the Movenpick resort and up to the cafe upstairs....we were covered in mud, our clothes were soaking...feet fairly catastrophic...but still we fancied an ice-cream (lets get our priorities straight!!) by the time the ice cream arrived we were both fast asleep on the sofas...and a rather timid waiter woke us up about an hour later worried that our ice creams were going to melt in front of the fire!!!
As always with these little adventures...the possibility of danger doesn't really hit home until much later....which I guess is good otherwise life might be quite dull!
Landslide blocks entrance to Wadi Musa
PETRA (Petra) — Authorities on Tuesday said a landslide was reported at the northern entrance to the town of Wadi Musa, which overlooks the ancient city of Petra. They said the road was closed and traffic was diverted to an alternative road. Public works teams started removing “large quantities of soil and rocks” that blocked the road, which is used by tourists heading to Petra. No fatalities or injuries were reported. Officials attributed the landslide to the fact the soil was still saturated with water from the flash floods that swept parts of the Kingdom earlier this month. The floods killed nine people in the southern and eastern regions of the Kingdom and resulted in the loss of shelter and livelihood as well as damaging water, electricity and transportation infrastructure.
At the end of January 2002 one of my colleagues (M) and I decided to head to Petra for the long weekend (King's Birthday)...we booked three nights down at the Nabatean Castle (Movenpick)..the first and second day we wandered through Petra...for me remembering playing there with my brother and a rather alarming horse riding incident involving my mother...On the third day M and I decided to do a little exploring off the beaten track...so consulting the trusty Lonely Planet we found a few hikes that sounded interesting...so we set off. We were told that the hike we chose would take about three hours and that it was fairly challenging...we were also told not to attempt this in winter as sudden snow fall could result in flash floods.....a quick glance at the sky...clear, blue and not a cloud to be seen and the fact that it hadn't snowed for about two weeks convinced us that we were ok to go....
Off we set...now a few things to consider...M is over 6ft...I am just scraping 5ft...I walk fairly swiftly so I can keep up...but the problems started when climbing though the wadis...some of the boulders and things we were scrambling over were about 10 feet high with 10 ft drops on the other side...usually into thigh high very, very icy water...."fairly challenging" became a mild understatement. However, we had reached the point where going back would have been a waste. In hindsight our little expedition was the height of idiocy...the water being so deep and cold meant that the hiking boots had to come off and we waded through water with sheets of ice on top...by the time we got to the end our feet were cut and bleeding and ever so slightly cold! The main reason it was stupid was that both of us underestimated the amount of snow still on the mountain, neither of us realised how narrow the wadis were when we started out....in some of them I couldn't walk straight ahead...but had to squeeze though sideways...M got jammed a few times with me having to pull (or push) depending on where I was to get him throught the gap. If we had been caught in a flash flood we wouldn't have had a hope in hell of getting out.....
In the end the walk took about 4 hours as there was so much water through the wadis....we arrived back at Wadi Mousa and walked into the Movenpick resort and up to the cafe upstairs....we were covered in mud, our clothes were soaking...feet fairly catastrophic...but still we fancied an ice-cream (lets get our priorities straight!!) by the time the ice cream arrived we were both fast asleep on the sofas...and a rather timid waiter woke us up about an hour later worried that our ice creams were going to melt in front of the fire!!!
As always with these little adventures...the possibility of danger doesn't really hit home until much later....which I guess is good otherwise life might be quite dull!
posted by Madame Chiang at 10:41 pm
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