Petra Part I – Not Feeling Well

Day 12 – Thursday March 11 “City of Desert Traders
CINDY

(Some details I left out intentionally as they are confidential to me).

Today I woke up not feeling well. I was nauseated all morning. I’m usually all bright and energetic in the morning and stuffing my face with the amazing breakfast food. However, this morning I was slow… no smile across my face… and as I went down to eat breakfast all I could look at was bread or yogurt.. everything else made me .. well yeah.. Not a great start.

The ride to Petra from our “Petra Palace” hotel (don’t let those words fool you… it was not one itsy bitsy close to a palace.. it was one of the worst places we stayed at including new painted fumes filling the halls and our rooms.. not so nice.. I was glad to get out of there) was literally like 30 seconds. I was hoping for a longer bus ride to prepare myself for the crazy trek through Petra in over 100 degrees desert heat. Nope. I rushed to put my suntan lotion on, grab my massive water bottle (we were going to be walking for 5 hours!), my camera, and lots of meds. As I ran out of the bus I realized I didn’t have on my newly bought ring. Nooooo! So I ran back to the bus (all this time my head is thumping and I’m still nauseated ☹ ) and did an intense search in 60 seconds. Nothing. Turned my bag and book bag inside out. Nothing. Boooo! I loved that ring! Ugh! Sick and now this! Dindy helped but we had to move on because the group was waiting at the entrance. I just laid it down and said “ok, God, well I am not going to let this ruin my day.. and pls give me strength to make it through” We power-walked back to the group and started along our way.
Petra was amazing. The colors in the stone and not to mention the crazy intricate decorative carving along the towering rock walls. When I would look up my eyes just kept following up one solid beautiful formed rock. This was the main crossroads for trading and the Nabataeans had complete control over it. The rock formations were so cool. They were almost fluid in their shapes.. wavy and not jagged. As the group would stop and look at steps carved into the rock to lead to a look out point or decorative boxes carved into the rock to house a certain idol, I would just to lean again the rock wall or find a seat. The nausea was not going away. The pain kept increasing. And the whole time I kept saying “I can do this.. just need to keep going and it’ll just go away.. a lil’ exercise may be all I need.” I popped another aspirin. Well this went on for 2 hours! I tried to enjoy it as much as I could but I think ppl of the group started noticing I wasn’t feeling well. One guy came up and said, “Hey are you ok? I haven’t heard you laugh today…" aaaw.

Well we finally made it to the main attraction. The treasury. Well no one knows what it really is.. could be a library.. maybe? But yeah. You just go around the bend and you all of the sudden find yourself standing in front of this awesome, majestic building carving right into the rock. There are pillars, steps, figures, and doors all carved in. It was breathtaking. As our tour guide would say “Marvel and click your cameras!” hahahaha. Oh buddy. I took a few pics. It was crowded with so many tourists buzzing around. It was so hard to not get other people in the pic!


Jackie and I had an interesting experience in the makeshift gift shop. Jackie do you remember the ring that we can use to take out someone else’s eye! Hahaha!

But I digress.

At that point we went got a bathroom break and as I entered the bathroom I felt chills running down my body and though it was over 100 degrees I was cold. Not good. I sat outside and all the pain and nausea just came flooding in more than before. I couldn’t hold it and as we sat there listening to Faye give her devotionals I could not fight the tears that were flooding my eyes from the pain. . I sat there on one of the rocks silently praying “God please take this pain away…” our tour had not finished. We still had another two hours. As the others went on their way, I just couldn’t muster enough strength to do the same ☹ A few of the women stayed with me. Joan, Diane, Helen, and Chrissy. It would be an hour walk back to the bus. Could I make it? The tour guide said he would stay with me and call the ambulance but lo and behold he disappeared..no where to be found. Stuck. As I trembled from the pain and holding back my nausea the women soothed me with their prayers and their motherly touches. I wanted to walk back but had to face reality. I just couldn’t. So the women went on a massive man hunt for the tour guide to call the ambulance. It took a good 10 mins. For me: an eternity.

Funny moment: As I was laying there on the rock, I had my eyes closed to try to focus away from the pain.. and every time I opened my eyes another camel was in front of me. Soon there were like four camels! Chrissy bent down and said "all those camels are for you. they saw you were sick so they are offering you a ride on the camel to the hospital." hahahaha!