Selling Alison

One of the highlights of Jordan at Christmas was visiting Petra. It was truly breath taking. If you ever get there, it’s worth taking the trek up the mountain to the Monastery and please say hello to our Jazzy-angel – we sprinkled a few of her ashes at the back, in the centre on what appeared to be a raised altar. (We take her everywhere with us and scatter just a small bit in the most beautiful places we find, which may seem odd, but it works for us.)
 

The famous Treasury at Petra

We were in Jordan with the kids, my parents and my friend, Alison. The Monastery was too far for my folks, so they caught a donkey back to the camels, to get a camel back to the horse and carriage, to get back to the bus. The transport system there is quite a feature! Our gorgeous guide Tala said she’d take our oldest (he’s in a wheelchair) and the youngest (the little one) while my partner, Alison, the then 11-year old and I made the climb. We arrived to find the entire site engulfed in a cloud and we couldn’t see a thing! Thankfully, after wasting some time in the extraordinarily expensive souvenir shop, the cloud lifted for an amazing view.

Donkey (as opposed to Gorilla) in the mist

The Monastery

So we now need to hot foot it back to the bus. My partner is not keen on riding animals so elects to walk. We grab a donkey and then walk about 2kms to the end of the gorge before getting on horses to ride back to the gate to meet up with the rest of the party. Tala has told us the horses are included in our ticket and that we just need to tip them – a ridiculous amount of money. They must be making more than anyone else in Jordan.

I get on my horse from the concrete platform erected for the purpose and grab the reins. The horse starts rearing up and I hope to Christ I don’t fall back off and crack my head on said concrete platform. ‘Let go of the reins!’ yells the horse guy. As a rider, albeit merely occasionally these days, it’s counter intuitive but I manage to let go and horse drops to the ground. That was more excitement than I needed!

Eventually, all three of us are on horses and set off with three horse handlers along side.

‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ one asks my daughter.
‘I’m eleven,’ she says in that voice that implies the question was stupid.
‘Can I marry you?’
‘I’m eleven,’ she repeats, slowly and loudly like he’s stupid.

They now move on to Alison.
‘Your daughter?’ he asks me.
Okay, so Alison is a few years younger than me – like 7 – not enough to be my daughter!!!
‘Aw, Mum,’ says Alison. I swear, if I were not stuck on a highly strung horse, I’d have jumped off and run back to bitch-slap her.
‘How much for your daughter,’ asks the guy.
‘A camel ought to do it’, I said.
‘Hey Mum!’ said Alison, ‘How come you happy to sell me, Mum? You love the other daughter more than me Mum. And surely I’m worth more than that….Mum!’
‘Okay, how about 2 camels? Too much? How about one camel and a chicken?’

The guy has warmed up. It goes on for a bit before he says to Alison:
‘I come to your hotel. I pick you up. Take you to the desert. We have some Bedouin whisky. You, me and a million stars….’ (Bedouin whisky is tea – these guys are devout Muslims and don’t drink alcohol.) ‘Where are you staying?’
‘The Diamond Hotel,’ I blurt out.
Alison, quite rightly, doesn’t think this is now funny. We are staying at the Diamond Hotel.
‘Just ask for Sarah,’ I improvise.

We’ve thankfully arrived at the gate and get off the horses. I tip the guys and they stand there and complain they want more. Gee – and I thought they liked us??

We get back to the bus and my partner is already there. So despite our relatively expensive donkey/walk/horse trip, he walked all the way and still beat us. But he didn’t have the entertainment!