A Night in a 4000 Year Old Cave, in Petra Jordan
/Are you wanting to visit Petra and not sure where to stay? Instead of booking one of the many over-priced hotels, why not add a little adventure to your trip. For only around £20 a night, I have the perfect solution for you! The Hakuna Matata Cave in Little Petra is a 15-minute drive away from Petra’s main entrance.
This is it - your home for the night! We stayed at the cave for one night during a 4 day trip in Jordan. We arrived in the town of Little Petra where we were dropped off at the side of the road - quite literally! The 4000-year-old cave is completely hidden between the mountains. Saif, a local Bedouin, is the owner of the cave. He picked us up and drove 15 minutes off-road through the desert.
We found the cave on Airbnb which had rave reviews but we were still very anxious as to what we had booked. We arrived at the cave where there was a tent set up, a campfire and a hole in the wall - our room. Again we had no WiFi or signal but there was also no electricity, running water or toilets. Just a few cushions stacked up, a blanket and a battery operated light.
Saif was actually a pretty cool guy. Even though he was a Bedouin, he was well travelled and his English was very good! His mother had prepared a huge spread for us including a veggie dish for me, yay! He sat in the tent with us while we ate and told us many stories of his life. He was only in his late twenties, however, he had knowledge of a fifty-year-old - it was an incredible experience to speak with him.
After dinner, he lit the campfire as I was freezing! I ended up wearing my partner’s jeans and every other layer that I had. We sat around the fire with some of his Bedouin friends while he played the flute. Again, it was another surreal experience, listening to them and sitting under the sky full of stars.
Saif and his friends left us around 10pm and it was time to head into the cave. Surprisingly it was warm inside, however that may have been the 4000-year-old dust keeping the cold out. The worst part was finding somewhere to go to the bathroom. We ended up walking in the pitch black around the side of the mountain to do our business. It was terrifying but yep here I am telling the tale…
The unnerving part was the lack of a door to the cave - it was just a piece of wood with no lock on the inside. We kept the battery light on and actually slept pretty good given the circumstances. I was very thankful to get through the night, however, I felt like my lungs were covered in dust.
We woke up at 7am amongst the clouds and couldn’t believe where we were. We could only see a few meters in front of us. To top it off, a Bedouin appeared out of the clouds and asked if we had a spare phone charger. We still want to know where he charges his phone… Anyway, we had arranged with Saif to get picked up at 8am by one of the Bedouins. To our amusement, at 7:59am a truck arrived and we had to say goodbye to the cave. It was Petra time!
