After last night's walk to the Treasury at Petra by Night, V did not feel confident in her ability to walk the distances required to explore the site properly, about 5k to get to the end of the track which passes through the Siq, past the Treasury and and past a number of tombs and monuments ending at the trail which begins the 800 steps leading up to the top of the Monastery heights. The return to the gate is over the same ground, but uphill in the return direction and in the heat of the day after having hiked around exploring the site. V decided that she would to take a horse-drawn carriage to the end of the trail and then walk back, the carriage meeting us at the Treasury for the last stretch. I reluctantly chose to join her as I was not keen to use the scrawny and over-worked horses and mules that are available for hire but I knew that V would simply not be up to the walk.

We were at the gate at about 8:15 and we were dropped at the end of the trail at about 8:45, arranging to meet our carriage at 3pm in front of the Treasury building, figuring that we'd have 6 hours to explore and to work our way back to the Treasury. We began the climb to the Monastery and got about halfway up but the climb was proving problematic for V's knees and the heat was ramping up so we worked our back down to the trail and spent the next 5 hours exploring some of the monuments and tombs before directing our steps to the trail and the Treasury. The site is huge and, if you have not been, stretches over many square kilometres, all of it up and down. I was aware of that before arriving but still had not fully grasped the extent of the city and the amount of time and energy that are required to really explore the site. Even more surprising is the very small area that has been excavated, the largest percent of the area literally untouched with trails leading off through the rough scrub desert and valleys in which it would be very easy to get lost, Diana having done just that when she visited Petra two years ago...

Early out of Murelle and back up to Paradise Lodge on our way back north to Addis. Retraced our route through the trackless, well barely, rough, dry, scrubby desert country. This is a region of termite mounds which are scattered in surprisingly large numbers across the countryside in addition to something else that fascinated me. This was the presence of a flower called by the locals a bottle flower, blooming in large numbers on a plant whose stem was smooth and gray and somewhat bottle-shaped, which like the termite mounds, were scattered throughout the dry scrub....

Picked up from the Sheraton and delivered to the Iguazu airport for our flight to Salta. Two hour flight north and west and arrived at about 2:00; met in Salta by Adolfo who will be our driver and guide for the next 6 days as we work our way across the Puna.

Had heard lots of good things about Salta; old and well-preserved colonial city; clean and filled with interesting architecture; and the best empanadas in Argentina...

We have been wanting to travel to South America for a number of years but Asia and later Africa always sang their siren song and we would once again promise ourselves that the next trip.....A catalyst was clearly needed and so for Xmas last year I gave V tickets to the opera in Buenos Aires and there was no longer any excuse.

Our timing was entirely driven by our opera tickets which are for the last night of the Season, Saturday Dec 7, and rather than extend the trip from that point on, which would bump us into Xmas, we are leaving next Thursday Nov 22 so as to have two weeks to wander before we need to be back in BA for the opera....

After yesterday's very pleasant weather, our day began more in the Provence mode than we would have liked, with grey skies and a steady cold rain.Not much fun slogging through the rain to look at sights so decided that today we would visit Le Bon Marché, our favourite department store in Paris and pick up any bits and pieces that we still needed to fill in the shopping gaps. It's a wonderful 19'th century building, straddling the 6'th and 7'th on the left side of the river, with a fabulous food hall and wine cellar. Took the Métro and arrived at about 11:00 and very surprised at how quiet and un-busy it was. First stop the food section and picked up some long pepper, a hard to find type of type of dried pepper that looks like a small black dry catkin, and which tastes like black pepper but with floral notes that span a much wider and richer taste spectrum than ordinary black pepper as well as a bottle of sel de citron which looks and smells wonderfully lemony and which will work very well sprinkled on asparagus or grilled fish. V loaded up on freshly baked Madelines....

Yesterday's red sky at night was a snare and a delusion; could hear the rain drumming on the roof overnight and it greeted us when we rose to start the day. There are a number of villages perchés, old medieval towns built on the heights of the highlands in the region that we have been wanting to visit, but had delayed since there was not much point of driving up in the rain only to be greeted by cloud-covered vistas when we reached the top, but since today was our last day we decided to go anyway. Chugged our way up the hills to Bonnieux, where there was a restaurant that had been recommended and arrived at its doors as the town clock struck twelve. The restaurant was not yet open but fortunately we stuck our head in the door and made a reservation for 12:30 when it opened. I say fortunately because, as it was May Day and a holiday, the town was full and when we returned at 12:30 for our table, the place was packed and people were being turned away....