"Donkey to the top, sir? I have a fine donkey for you. I take you up. I wait for you. I bring you down. Nice donkey for you, sir."
He was certainly polite, and persistent.
"Maybe tomorrow. Today I want to visit the museum."
"No problem sir. When you finish museum, I wait for you other side. Donkey wait for you. Very nice donkey." A local Bedouin of about 18, he reminded me of those two boys in Lawrence of Arabia.
Mahmoud Sulaiman, hanging out with me in Petra's newly excavated Byzantine Church. Mosaics are particularly interesting here, offering evidence that Petra flourished on the spice route through the early Christian era.
I took about 20 minutes looking at shards from pots, bits of mosaics, and small oil lamps, in the free museum attached to a rather upscale restaurant operated by Marriott. True to his word, the boy was waiting when I emerged, fending off the other boys all equally prepared to provide me a donkey ride to the Petra Monastery.
In no mood to bargain, I accepted the boy's opening price of 20 dinars ($30), which he claimed already to have reduced from a hypothetical 30 dinars possibly paid only by the King of Jordan himself.
"Swing your leg first," he said. I was trying to mount the donkey by first placing one foot in a stirrup, as one would mount a horse. Instead, the boy wanted me to mount the donkey as I'd mount a bicycle. Given my height and the donkey's short legs, this proved quite feasible, though the boy then had to place the stirrups on my feet manually, given that they dangled and twisted on short ropes from the cloth saddle, resisting my efforts to spear them with the toes of my shoes.
"You ride nice. You do this before? Relax your hand. Rest easy like me. What is your name?"
"I'm Jeff," I replied, as the donkey increased to a trot and headed off the trail toward a cave. It was as if I was on a machine at a theme park, with nice looking controls that served no real purpose. I tried making a clicking noise and tugging gently on the rope attached to the donkey's bridle, but it appeared the donkey had forgotten I was there.
"My name is Mahmoud," said the boy, along with several fast clicks to insert his own mount between me and the cave. "Your donkey sleeps in this cave," he explained. "Now is not time for sleeping." Sorry, entering the cave really wasn't my idea.
Initially the climb wasn't very steep, along a narrow road rather than path, lined on both sides with large flat stones, and softer sand in between. Many of the tourists found the walking to be much easier on the flat stones than in the sand. My donkey had of course made this climb a thousand times, and was even more certain of the efficiency of walking on flat stones.
"Excuse me!" cried Mahmoud to the people ahead of us, as my donkey marched smartly. "Please! Por favor! S'il vous plait!"
A man to the left called out to a woman walking on the flat stones on the right, the same ones about to be occupied by my donkey. "Attencion. Ils viennent derriere toi!"
Too late. With a cry, the French woman was nudged aside by the nose of my donkey, leaping with a short cry about a foot into the soft sand beside the path. Alas, I couldn't risk turning around to watch the conclusion of the drama, as steep stone steps carved into the face of the hill were just ahead.
My donkey slowed a bit, as if to choose the best path. It decided to zig zag, presenting a further dilemma to the tourists ahead who then had no idea on which side to wait to avoid us. I smiled politely, nodding regally, as the tourists leaped this way and that to avoid my donkey.
We zipped right up. I leaned forward so as not to tumble off backward. We reached a flat bit where young women had set up small wooden displays of jewelry, with brooches and rings on trays, while necklaces dangled from the overhead cover. My donkey seemed to like to angle under those covers, placing my head at just the right height for the stones of the necklaces to bash my forehead. The donkey increased speed, as if to challenge me. I leaned to one side in an evasive maneuver, but could feel the saddle slipping a bit, thwarting my effort. The women shouted at my donkey and stuck out their feet, and we veered back into the center of the path.
After about 15 minutes and 800 or so steps, we reached a small plateau just below the plaza of the Monastery.
"Swing your leg," said Mahmoud, taking my reins. Yes, yes, of course, swing. I slid gently off the donkey. "You go up this stairs to Monastery. I wait for you here. I make nice tea for you, give you good energy for the donkey ride down."
The Monastery from above. The small black rectangle bottom center in the Monastery is a doorway, about 30 feet tall. People are barely visible in the picture as small specks.
The descriptions of the Monastery do not do it justice. It is said to be plain compared to the Treasury, yet it is larger and more approachable. A lovely cafe sits opposite, serving cold drinks for appreciative, weary climbers (and donkey riders who are perhaps not weary but want to fit in). There's some debate about whether it was ever a monastery at all, more likely a tomb, or a place for some sort of sacred ritual. But local sages called it a monastery when it was found by visiting Europeans, and so it has that name, ad-Deir in Arabic.
The view of the lookout points, taken from the plaza in front of the Petra Monastery. Beyond is a sheer dropoff, and a magnificent view of the Dead Sea and Israel beyond. The tiny specks on top are people. It's farther away than one might think.
A further short climb reaches amazing vistas of the vast Dead Sea plains, with Israel clearly visible across the Jordan River. A young Chinese woman, traveling solo, politely asked me to take her picture, and of course agreed to reciprocate. We listened to a man playing a local lute-type instrument. The musician's companion served tea. Tourists mounted the summit, stared off into the distance for awhile, slowed their heavy breathing, wiped their brows, then returned.
Tea on a brazier. Mahmoud is boiling water with gunpowder tea and lots of sugar. Behind is his donkey, near a sheer cliff.
I arrived back at the donkey-parking plateau, welcomed by Mahmoud's sister, a petite girl with a pretty face framed in a head scarf, adorned in her own jewelry products. We sat in a sheltered space behind her stand, where water was reaching a boil in an open, Turkish-coffee style pot perched on a small charcoal brazier, tended by Mahmoud, who spooned in heaping teaspoons of powdery tea, followed by a like amount of sugar. Mahmoud served me in a chipped, clear glass coffee mug. Rotating the mug to avoid the chipped parts, I sipped. It was syrupy sweet and delicious.
We sat cross legged on a mat with Mahmoud's sister as well as two of Mahmoud's male friends. One of the boys seemed intent on calling to every pretty woman who passed.
"Excuse me miss!" he shouted. "You drop something! You drop my broken heart. Please come back to me!" I figure he saw it in a movie. The passing women seemed annoyed at worst, though mostly amused.
The other boy critiqued the effort in slightly better English, presumably for my benefit. "You ugly face. Nobody stop for you. Shut up! Shut up you ugly face!" All in good fun. They played Bob Marley on a cell phone. I slurped my cooling tea. Tourists passed, climbing up or descending, peering in at me smiling. I sensed they were wondering how I got so lucky.
I remembered to ask for a picture just as Mahmoud and I were parting. He chastised me for not asking sooner, as he'd already given his donkey to a friend for watering. We flagged down a passing stand-in donkey for this shot, snapped on my camera by Mahmoud.
