Thanks a lot.
What times should I estimate duration from x to y, etc
If I rent a car, will I save or multiply headaches?
just edited that post to add the water advice.
We didn't rent a car so I don't know about that but if your going with a couple of people cab will work just fine.
We were there for 2 nights and two days
We got there at night just before the border crossing closed and took a cab to Petra where we stayed in a hotel that we found on kayak. It was about $50 a night and very decent. It was about a 5 minute walk to the entsnce of Petra. No cars are allowed in Petra so it won't help you in there. On the way to the hotel at night our driver stopped at some souvenir stores for us. They have these massive stores that only sell hookah products. Over there they call it nargeelah or something like that. He had no idea what we were talking about when we said hookah. He also took us to wadi musa which is what they claim is be'er Miriam although according to the Torah we don't know where it is but I guess it's worth a stop anyhow.
We basically spent the entire day in Petra. There is a ton of walking and the mule ride to Kever Aharon was about 4 hours round trip IIRC. we walked out of Petra and walked a few minutes in to town to get a cab to Aqaba. We didn't want to get ripped off at the Petra gate where only tourists hail cabs. We literally spent about half our time there haggling prices. It's insane it can make you crazy.
In Aqaba we stayed k. Some other hotel we found online. It was very decent and very clean. It was very Arabic in design which was interesting.
We walked around a bit and checked out some shops. The next morning we went to a beach that is basically just for tourists. It costs like 5 dinar to get in but it was worth it. There are pools and showers there as well. You can even rent snorkel gear and go your self. (we really enjoyed that ).
After that we of course bargained with some cab to the us to wadi rum atving. That was really amazing.
From there we took a cab back to the border to get there before closing. Don't forget to stop at duty free. They had some really good deals.