Soaking up the Local Life

I'll never forget the day that my new-found travel buddy and I slipped away from the general throng of tourists winding their way through the ancient city of Petra. Adalberto and I were searching for a secluded lunch spot, sheltered from both the drone of the crowd and the gusts of wind, re-creating our 'sand-wiches'. We savoured a peasant feast in a little cave so colourful that it would have been a rainbow if it wasn't made out of rock!
After our meal we took time and photographs, in no rush to return to the bustle just yet... Then we realised we were no longer alone! Two keffiyeh-clad heads peered around the corner as a bunch of curious Bedouins - the nomadic custodians of Petra - had arrived to find out what the two Westerners that had snuck off were up to.
When they saw that we weren't up to any 'naughty Hollywood business' they introduced themselves and warmly invited us to the cave opposite ours for tea.

Because we couldn't possibly have tea in the 'lunch cave'?!

So we obliged and followed the nomads across.
We watched the unpacking of the donkey that had all the tea ingredients plus kettle and blanket stacked and dangling in all possible ways. "We do it Beduoin-style", they said. We then witnessed an entire packet of sugar being dumped into the kettle to be boiled on a small tea fire that had appeared in the middle of the cave. As our bedouin-style tea slunk sweetly down our throats - and how amazing a hot tea can be, even in a sizzling desert! - the beduoin wanted to know: "Where are you from? Where are you staying?" We told them we'd booked into a nearby hotel and they ordered us to go back there; collect our things; and take a taxi to the bedouin village.
So that evening, we booked out of our hotel and drove off towards the mysterious bedouin village. Their beloved king built them houses (with bathrooms) when they had to leave the caves in Petra, because of tourism. They're not too sure how bathrooms work though.
After a brilliant feast, our host Abashish (meaning 'the happy one') informed us that, tomorrow, we would ride off. They didn’t explain where we were going, but for the next few days we were whisked off into the dessert, on donkeys by day and under the stars at night. They cooked our suppers using chicken fencing as a grill and burying bread in the sand as an oven. They serenaded us with lute and home-made flute and I will never, ever forget the day it all began.