Petra – A Traveling Fool

Indiana Jones has got nothing on me. He traveled through the Siq in Petra, Jordan to find the Holy Grail. I traveled through the same Siq to see the Treasury (the building used in the movie as the location of the Holy Grail) and the rest of the ancient city of Petra. It is a two hour walk into Petra and two ½ hours uphill back out again.

Petra is believed to have been settled as early as 9,000 BC with the Nabateans settling in and expanding the city in the 4^th century BC. The Nabateans grew wealthy through trade in frankincense, myrrh and spices, and are considered to possibly be the “wise men from the east” who traveled to Bethlehem shortly after the birth of the baby Jesus.

On the way to the ancient city, we passed the mountain (Mount Hor) where Moses’ brother, Aaron, is buried. The photo is a little fuzzy, but you can see a white building at the top of the mountain.

We were at Petra (which had been known as Raqmu by the Nabateans) when they opened. We weren’t the only people there or the first people there, but it wasn’t nearly as crowded as it would be later in the day. It also wasn’t as hot as it would be later.

The first structure encountered, once entering the area, is the Obelisk Tomb. It definitely has strong Egyptian influences. Shortly after passing this building, the Siq begins. It is a very deep and narrow gorge. Here and there it widens a bit and Roman paving can still be seen in places. The Roman eventually took over the city. Then earthquakes in 363 AD destroyed much of the city. Changes in the trade routes also meant that the city declined until the middle 7^th century, by which time it was finally abandoned. That’s when the Bedouins moved in.

At the end of the Siq is a very tantalizing glimpse of the Treasury (Al-Khazneh) shortly before emerging from the Siq to fully see the building. The Treasury was built in the beginning of the 1^st century AD as a mausoleum. The name “the Treasury” came later when people thought that pirates had hidden some treasure in the urn on the façade. Significant damage can be seen on the urn from when the Bedouins shot at it.

There isn’t anything inside the Treasury and you can’t go in it either (at least we couldn’t in 2010). But I went up the steps and took a photo inside through the opening.

Veering to the right of the building and along the road there, it doesn’t take long to get to the Street of Facades. This has loads of buildings carved into the rock on numerous levels. We took a lunch break there. The dog of the owner of the café where we stopped for lunch decided that I was his buddy and he lied down with his head on my foot to take a nap. Fortunately he did decide to get up and go about his business before we needed to leave.

From the Street of Facades, we continued on to the Theatre and the Royal Tombs (the Urn Tomb, the Silk Tomb, the Corinthian Tomb, and the Palace Tomb). Then we had the Nymphaeum (fountain), the Colonnaded Street (the central market of Petra), the Great Temple, and another temple called Qasr al-Bint.

It would have been a long, steep climb to the Monastery and would have taken me too long (I can do mountainous climbs just fine when I have time, but not too well in a hurry). So I chose not to make the climb. Nobody else in my group did it either. I spent my time exploring the main part of Petra. I visited the restroom and bought a couple more bottles of water before beginning the 2 ½ hour uphill trek back through the Siq. It was pretty warm by then. I downed 3 ½ bottles of water along the way (and sweated it all out again).

I had noticed several people with donkeys or camels for rent on the way down into Petra, but not on the way back. I had my collapsible cane with me, so I used it much like a staff. It really does help to have a cane or a walking pole of some kind during these types of hikes. I usually take the cane since it is light weight and folds up to fit in my camera bag when I don’t need it. I have taken walking poles on other trips when the hiking has been pretty extensive.

Emerging from the Siq and looking for a restroom and a place to get some ice cream or fresh-squeezed orange juice, a young Jordanian engaged me in conversation. To make a long story short, he wanted me to adopt him and take him to the US. It wasn’t that many years earlier that I would have had a proposal of marriage. But then, I wasn’t in my twenties or even my thirties any more.

The next morning, we got up at 5am and left the hotel at 7am. This was for an extra visit that wasn’t on the itinerary – Little Petra. At the time we were there, it was thought to be roughly 400 years older than the larger city and had been where the Nabateans lived before creating Petra. But current archeologists feel that it was created about the same time as the larger city as a type of suburb, possibly for travelers to Petra.

On our way to Little Petra, we could see part of the larger Petra from above. We also saw the “back door” to Petra for supplies and staff. Nobody was at Little Petra when we arrived. We were able to enter the buildings there. We spent about an hour exploring and then set off to return to Amman. On our way, we stopped off at a place with a lot of antiques. I bought a curved dagger.

We also stopped for lunch at an authentic Jordanian restaurant. We didn’t encounter any other tourists. Several people were smoking from large water pipes. The first course was a variety of of dishes, most of which I had no idea what they were. What I could identify included humus, babaganush, sausagues, veggies, pita, and olives. The main course included lamb cooked with rice and yogurt plus a mixed grill with lamb and chicken. Dessert was watermelon. This was all washed down with a lemon mint drink.

Next time — we finish our time in Jordan at Amman.