The alarm goes off at some stupid hour. I ignore it. I'm downstairs at 7:55. Lonely Planet says that that hotel gives rides to the grounds for free, so I ask. The non-English speaking half of the management team indicates, "Ride to Petra - yes." Nothing happens, so I leave, looking for breakfast and a cab. I ask in a grocery store for a bakery, and I'm given directions. A cab pulls up and I explain that I'm walking to the bakery. He says he'll take me there and then to Petra for 1JD. I agree. After a bit of confusion (I guess that I said "falafel" so I'm taken to a restaurant where I score a remarkable 10 of these tasty greasy things for something like 25 cents) we make it to a bakery, where I feel obligated to buy more food. Then I'm off to the ruins.

Just outside the entrance a vendor calls out "Hats, Half-JD!" and at that price I grab one. Today is a chill-day. Instead of again covering miles, my plan is to find a small place to hide out, and just soak up the atmosphere.

I linger at a number of rest points this second day. I eat some of my goodies in the siq, then hang out by the Treasury where a film crew is finishing up, then spend perhaps an hour chatting with Ali, a Bedouin shop owner directly across from the Roman-style amphitheater, having two teas and listening to his thoughts on many subjects.

Thoughts of Ali, the Bedouin shop owner in Petra:

• Tourism is down. It was 3,000 a day back in year 2000, now maybe 300 to 500.
  
• 9/11 was a US-staged event. Why were the Jews warned?
  
• Ali had picked up a guard dog, a puppy. I asked him if theft was a problem. "No, only problem is with Israeli tourists. The French too".
  
• Ali explained how to make fake coins. Use lead, cover them with tea and yogurt, and bury them for one week. The way to tell a fake coin is to study the edge and see if it was machine stamped.
  
• Other governments are shaking down the USA, claiming various incidents as terrorism and getting US dollars to deal with these incidents.
  
• I sold a fake coin to a Japanese guy for 50JD. Sold a real silver coin to that guy who just came by for 150JD.
  
• Old things are found every year after the winter rains.
  
• Yes, Luxor is very nice, but Luxor touts are very very pesky. (I asked him how he-a very Arabic-looking Arab-could be flagged as a tourist.) "They recognize that my accent is different."

I leave Ali and drift over to the Silk Tomb, where I hide out in a shallow cave, soaking up a grand view of much of the area.

I know that I need closure on the issue of my 12JD fake face. I still like it, but keeping it will just remind me of my foolishness. I toy with walking up the path, finding the woman that sold and simply giving it back to her, but I end up just giving it to another vendor that has some of the same faces in his collection. He is a very nice man and, after I add my souvenir to his table, he presses on me a "genuine" Nabataean finger bone.

It's been a good day. As I drift toward the exit, I review my to-do's:

• Phone home.


• Laundry.


• Determine how I'm getting from Petra to Aqaba. Do I veer right at the upper traffic circle, as someone said? Do I take a cab up to the main road, the way I came in? Or do I pay 15JD for a 30-k ride, getting much of the climb out of the way (at least according to yesterday's cab driver, who conveniently left me his phone number!)?