Captured by the Bedouin

It’s not that I don’t find ancient history interesting… I do! I just have a short attention span for it, and maybe that’s just because I don’t much about it. I don’t know who the Nebeteans were or the Byzantines or who the Corinthians were and although I know more about the Romans I am not really sure what they had to do with Petra but apparently something. Despite this I could almost comprehend how old Petra is and I could certainly feel its magnificence and by extension it’s significance.

Not long after entering the gates of Petra you walk through a kind of eerie narrow gorge about a kilometre long where I felt as if at any minute I would hear the ghosts of horses and shouts of men haunting the area from thousands of years ago. It was bustling with tourists, touts and begging children and echoing off the sides of the gorge was still the clomp clomp clomp of horse and carriage… It felt timeless. I imagined similar people, only in different dress 2’000 years ago all heading down the same path, in the same direction, to marvel at this powerful city.

At the end of the gorge is the most famous Petran monument, 40 meters high and towering over us with its grandeur: the Al Khazna. It is a majestic building, with decorative bands and figures, hand carved to impress pharaohs and kings. Mostly I marvelled at its resilience to stand the test of time in such a hostile environment.

Our guidebook told us that to really see Petra properly we would need to spend at least four days there. After seeing the grand Al Khazna in the first hour I felt content enough to leave. Molly did not.

She took her time studying the grand monument from various distances and angles while I spent a great deal of time looking at a camel. I decided that camels are a lot cuter than they are given credit for. I wondered what would happen if I tried to kiss the camel on the head. After much deliberation I decided not to try to kiss the camel.

When I was bored of the camel I found Molly, she was sitting on a bench facing the Al Khanza surrounded by some young attractive Bedouin men on horse/donkey.

Since entering Petra we had been relentlessly harassed by un-official Bedouin guides atop either a horse, donkey, mule or camel all offering to show us around. We had refused, partially wanting to walk, partially to spite them for their constant nagging. All of the ‘guides’ were men and all were a special type of Casanova: “Air conditioned ride in a Mercedes? (Referring to their horse?)”, “Lady you dropped something! My heart!”

Despite knowing that the attention they paid us and their cheeky humour was their clever way of getting what they want from us: either sex or money or both, we couldn’t help but get seduced by their charm. They followed us as we walked away from them and somehow within five minutes I was sitting on a mule and Molly was on top of a donkey. We unwittingly had allowed two young men to take complete control of us and lead us off on the back of their animals. Without pausing we passed the ancient theatre, the royal tombs, the colonnades and drifted away from all of the tourists and the touts and instead the boys led us up the side of a steep rocky mountain. I loved being on the back of an animal, even though at times I shared the mules back with Lost, my Bedouin guide, who I spent half the ride with my legs around and my breasts pressed into his back. There was nowhere on the saddle that I could grip onto when the ride got steep and so I was forced to wrap my arms around him. I liked that he was quiet and didn’t say much, he was rugged and hairy and smelled like he hadn’t showered in a week… his smell was over-powering and so strong I could taste it… I was surprised how much I liked his smell. I loved that the Bedouin men wore eyeliner and had long, thick and wavy dark hair.

Molly’s guide Mohammad talked a lot more, he had lived and studied in Russia and his English was flawless. Molly does not like riding on animals, she doesn’t like heights and she doesn’t like not having control, so for much of the ride she whined and protested… “Excuse me Madame” I heard him say in his thick Arabic accent “Will you please shut up!” And she did. For a whole two minutes.

I think being told to shut up went down well with her and by the end of the ride the two of them were getting along famously… I was still happy that my guide was quiet and I could take in the vast desert surroundings in relative peace.

At the top of the mountain we sat under a little hut and the boys made us tea. We all joked around and had a laugh. The boys were flirting outrageously, particularly Mohammad with Molly who clutched his heart when he saw her hair: “Oh my God why have you been hiding this from me!” he called her hunny-bunny and would grab her around the waist and pretend that he was going to throw her off the mountain. The boys made out that life was one big party, they were free and careless and they made sure to point out this in opposite to the stressful, restrictive life at home they assumed that we lived.

Of course the boys were overtly very sexual, Mohammed got a little too hands-on with Molly and they made homophobic comments and jokes, which was their undoing for us. After some time we got up and told them we wanted to part ways, making our own way down the mountain.

Without hesitation they let us be but before they rode off I tried to offer them money. I assumed after-all that is what they wanted from us.

Mohammad was offended, or at least made out that he was offended. He said: “Sometimes people do things because they like people not because they want money”. Then they rode off.

Molly was angry that I had offered them money and was worried I had offended them.

On the long walk back down the hill we turned a bend only to find the boys waiting there for us. I was not at all surprised.

Mohammed seemed pissed off; he told us that he was offended I had offered him money. They told us they liked us, wanted to be our friends and show us their home. They told us they didn’t want our money.

They offered us a ride back to the entrance; perhaps it was our guilt that caused us to accept the offer.

On the long way back to the entrance we stopped to see Lost’s home: his cave. It was about 4m long and 3m wide, had a rug on the floor, a few clothes and other possessions and nothing else. It fascinated me that he lived there. I romanticised such an existence, to be alone in the desert with nothing but the bare essentials and a permanent feeling of freedom.

I am still not sure what had possessed us, but we actually arranged to meet Lost and Mohammed the next night. They offered to take us out into the desert, in the middle of nowhere to eat a traditional meal over the fire, and we said yes. In hindsight it was probably me who accepted the invitation without hesitation, Molly being naturally more discerning and careful than I am didn’t actually say yes to going.

I was looking forward to it though, pretending for a night to live that romantic ideal I had felt in Lost’s home-cave. And I still don’t regret meeting up with them the next night, even if Molly later described it as one of the worst nights of her life.