Date: 2005-04-11
From: Petra (Wadi Musa)

To: Petra
Miles today: 0.0

We have an early start for our visit to Petra so we can spend the entire day exploring all that it has to offer. Petra is an ancient Nabataean city with rooms and facades carved out of reddish sandstone. Let me qoute from the tourist flyer: "Much of Petra's appeal comes from its awesome, multicoloured sandstone high mountains; it is a secluded site of steep rocky slopes, towering craggy mountain tops and high cliffs, into which most of the celebrated tombs, facades, theatres and stairways are carved... Nature and architecture concur into conferring a mythical aura to the site." I mostly wanted to see it because it's the site that gets blown up in the end of 'Indiana Jones and the last crusade'. Just kidding ; )You enter it through a narrow canyon (siq) and when it opens up you're right in front of the Treasury. The view of the beautiful carved facade with the big pillars is awesome. The nice thing about being early is that there aren't many tourists yet and I get some good pictures of the Treasury. I'll try to get scan some so you can see what I'm talking about.There are more beautiful buildings and rock formations. Some are heavily eroded some have been recontructed. They're all interesting. The coloring of the rockwalls is very diverse. It ranges from light red to dark blue. A local advised us to go up to the High Place of Sacrifice and walk to the Monastery from there. We take his advice and start climbing the stairs.It was great advice we have the High Place to ourselves and enjoy awesome views over Petra. It's very windy which is nice but we have to be careful not to tumble over the edge.Along the way donkey rides are offered but we rather walk. Goats and bedouins are our only companions on this trail. When we continue on to other sights we see more tourists and it's getting pretty hot. Lots of vendors are trying to sell necklaces and daggers. "Good price, only one dollar!" We're not too interested though. We climb lots of stairs and navigate around the other tourists up to the monastery. There are great views to be had on the top and it's worth the effort.Back down we find some good shade and a breeze, I take my shoes off and cool off, ahhh!We continue to some roman stuff and up more steps to the tombs. They have beautiful colors and because of erosion they look like something Gaudi could have thought up.We take shelter from the heat again and sit in the shade at the amphitheater until an Italian tour guide takes over the place. We move on to have tea with the bedouin who gave us the idea to walk the itinerary we did. We talk politics and I think I might tone down my American accent a little ; )It's been an exhausting day but there's more. After dinner there is 'Petra by night'.Candles are lit to guide the way and there's a great ambiance. There is a big group of people tonight and everybody is chatting away. A lot of different languages. In general it seems that the French and the Italians talk a lot and very fast and the Dutch are loud. The guide requests quiet time for the trip through the siq. We hang back so we can pretend there aren't 100 other tourists around. Walking through the dark and quiet siq has quite an impact on me... Exiting the siq we are greeted by typical bedouin music. And hundreds of candles... pretty awesome. Too bad people are taking so many flash photos. It disturbs the peaceful setting. But that's just my opinion... After the typical tea and more music the event is over. We hang back again and enjoy some more quiet in the siq. Some passersby are asking if we are tired but I'm just taking my time and soaking it up. Today was AWESOME!!!