PETRA!!! Part 1

For many of the 22 of us on the tour the primary destination would be Petra. This was the culmination of what they hoped to see during our 12-day journey. I am embarrassed to admit that I knew so little about Petra before I booked the tour that it was just another "place" to me. Of course, I'd seen "Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade" and the other Indiana Jones movies, but it didn't sink in that part of the movie was set in Petra.

Honestly, with the opportunity to look back on the journey, I would love to be able to go back with unlimited time and explore each and every place we visited extensively.  As I tell first-time visitors to Yosemite, you can't do this place justice in less than two to three days (at a minimum).

Because there's so much to see and learn, there will be at least three posts covering the Rose Red City. 

We arrived at the Movenpick Resort hotel late in the afternoon. The hotel sat just yards from the entrance to Petra. The following day we would depart early and on foot to explore the wonders of the Rose Red City.

This somewhat unimpressive "road" is the entrance to the canyon ("Siq") and gives little hint at the magnificence
that awaits us. These rock formations reminded me of the rocks of Utah.

This is the Siq (canyon) leading to the main part of Petra.

It's worth noting that not one of my photos begins to properly illustrate the grandeur of Petra.  If you see photos that you think are pretty amazing, multiply that amazement by ten. It is that impressive.

These photos only hint at the striations of color contained in the canyon walls. 

The cliffs are dotted with openings, as in the photo above. These holes are tombs carved out of the cliffs. 

As "they" say, " you ain't seen nothin' yet." 

As we walked the Siq, Zac, our guide, talked about the people who created this place, the Nabateans.  They were an Arab people who inhabited this hidden canyon in the 200 to 300 years before the Christian Era. They were traders, particularly in frankincense and myrrh. And they had found and created the perfect place to build a hidden city.

The above photo, taken from an overlook above the city of Wadi Musa and Petra, shows how hidden the city was and is. 

Above, Nabatean guards protect the entrance to the city.

The tribe of B'doul Bedouins are the descendants of the ancient Nabateans, and they have been given special permission by the King of Jordan to be able to set up shops inside Petra. They also provide a sort of taxi service, via horse- and donkey-drawn carts as well as camels to transport those who don't feel like making the trek on their own feet.

Above is a sample of a Petra taxi. 

If there were any one negative factor about Petra, for me it would be the pervasiveness of the Bedouin "hawkers." They were ever-present and extremely persistent. We'd been warned about this, and Zac taught us all how to say "no, thanks!" in Arabic. It didn't do any good. If you said no, they'd come back with "later, maybe, Lady?" 

Yet the Bedouin have a right to lay claim to this place which has been their home for over 2,000 years. In fact until the 1980's they actually made their homes in the caves lining the cliffs of Petra, until Petra was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and they were moved to modern housing a short distance away.

Above is a niche where the Nabateans kept statues of their gods as well as a rudimentary staircase up the cliff. Judging from the steepness of the cliffs, it would seem the Bedouins are descended from mountain goats.

Our journey down the Siq was plodding as Zac acquainted us with its history. During its heydey Petra's population exceeded 20,000. How could a site this isolated support such a number of people? 

The Nabateans were engineers as well as artists. They built cisterns, dams and waterways to preserve and carry the life-giving liquid through the city.

Behind this wall is a cistern to store water.

As we traversed the Siq, Zac had us stop for just a moment, where Lorenzo and Mary
"renewed their vows" in side-by-side niches carved into the hillside.

As we listened to Zac, it became really clear that this wasn't his first time here. He was well-schooled in all the nuances of the site. After about two hours of hiking, he stopped us and insisted that we all move to the right and form a straight line, one after the other.

"No, no--get back. All the way to the right. No cheating," he admonished.  "I'm going to show you a treasure of gold."

What was it?