Petra "A Wonder of the World"

Petra in Jordan was our last stop. It is considered one of the new 7 wonders of the world and I know why. It was amazing, unbelievable, incredibly impressive, massive and all carved out of stone. There is an entry fee and it is recommended that you use a guide when walking through Petra because the guides are so much more knowledgeable about the history of Petra. Once you enter Petra you can walk for about 1 km (.62 miles) along the Siq which is a pathway that takes you through a canyon of rocks.

Petra was originally built over 2000 years ago by the Nabataean's and many of the remaining structures were built as elaborate tombs that were intended to last throughout the after life. So the structures look impressive, but in reality are tombs. Over the years the Bedouins ended up moving into the area until the mid 80's when they were finally moved out. Most of the old homes have disappeared due to earth quakes, but the tombs remain.

But before we get to that I thought it was important to show you a shot from above Petra looking down at it in what I call the Jordanian Grand Canyon. Of course I'm in your favorite shirt.

I promise I'll go out and buy more long sleeve shirts that will protect me from the sun. I only took my hat off for the picture.
When we got down the hill and headed in we spent about 20 minutes walking through the Siq with our guide as he described some of the history of Petra and what we were looking at. This is a typical shot of what the Siq looks like as you're walking through, but every rock wall, every color from different angles seems to be different.

After your 1 km walk the guides bring you into an opening to view what is called the Treasury building, don't know why it's called that, but it is so I'm going with it. Some of these pictures might look familiar to you because Petra was used in the filming of one of the Indiana Jones movies. The treasury building, as you can see, is carved into a sheer face of stone. Muy impressivo as they say in some countries.

From the treasury building on out it is just one amazing site after another. Bedouin homes carved into the rocks so the families lived in caves all throughout the valley. This went on until about the mid 80's, 1980's that is. Finally the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) came in and declared it a treasure and moved all the Bedouin families out to a village they built up on one of the hills overlooking Petra with homes for everyone, electricity and running water. I know that because we went there for dinner after touring Petra. One of my co-workers is friends with one of the families and they invited all of us to their home for a typical Bedouin dinner. Years ago our dinner host's mother was visiting Petra from New Zealand and fell in love with a Bedouin man and married him and moved into the cave with him and ended up raising her three children there. She wrote a book about her life "Married to a Bedouin". Rami, our host, is her son.

I'm sure some of you are wondering what a typical Jordanian Bedouin dinner is and I'm going to tell you. They cut up a chicken into about 1/4's, cook it in a large pot, they add sliced potato's and eventually rice all in layers. They take the pot and flip it over onto a large tray to get everything out of it. Once it's on the tray they spread it out to cover the whole circle. Each person gets a small bowl with some cut up greens (salad) and a cup of yogurt. You have your own section of the tray much like a large slice of pizza. When you want, you add a little salad to your area, put some plain yogurt in there mix everything up and then simply make a ball of food with your hand and eat it. I didn't mention dishes or utensils, who has time to wash that stuff when you're living in a cave. The chicken and potato's you simply eat when you want, but only out of your section. Don't let your hands wander. The dinner was delicious just like comfort food you'd get in the east or midwest.
If I included all the pictures I took I'd be writing and you'd be reading for way too long , but further down the trail we got to the Monastery.

Just another massive structure carved out of stone. After a long walk to just get near there we then had climb 860 stone steps to get to the base of it. Then my little group and I went even further to be able to see all of the valley. Mt. Sinai in Egpyt has 750 steps to get up to the top after a climb of about 3000 meters.

As I said the group of students I went with decided to climb up to the top to get the best view in Petra and we were able to look back down at the Monastery and see where we came from and out even further into the valley.

This was by no means easy climbing and some of the folks in our group had problems due to muscle soreness from Dead 2 Red along with just not being able to climb or not wanting to. I was winded and sweating and I'm in decent shape right now.

We didn't have time to explore every part of Petra and websites like http://visitjordan.com/ suggest you take at least 3 days in Petra and I can see why. You can see a person in this picture walking by the stairs, I walked that same path twice and never saw anything above the stairs until we climbed up to the site of the Byzantine Church across the way and looked down on all these ruins. We also went by a 3000 seat amphitheater carved into the side of a hill. From our perch at the Byzantine Church I was able to take this panoramic shot of one of the cliffs that becomes truly visible to you when you're looking back at it from the right height.

We never made it to the High Place of Sacrifice, which might be a good thing because the students might have wanted to sacrifice me. Never mind having the time to explore some of the caves and wide open spaces. Here's another panoramic shot of a whole cliff full of caves and if you look real hard at the caves on the left you'll see some camels in them.

I can tell you this. I will go back to Petra a few more times. I was simply amazed and can't wait to explore every place I can. I thought about buying my girls little gifts there like I usually do when I travel, but I realized I didn't want to because I want to take them there. If you have any plans to come to the Middle East you should carve out a few days for a side trip to Petra. It's a fairly short flight 2 1/2 hrs to Amman and then a 2 hr drive from there to Petra.

You need to be ready to walk and climb though. Check out the website and believe anything they say on it since I sometimes get stuff wrong on this blog.

These pictures don't do it justice. I've been to the Grand Canyon, I've been to the top of Mt. Sinai, I've been up in the Rocky Mountains, I've never seen anything like this. Girls get your passports ready, we're going to Petra, preferably before you get married so it doesn't cost me too much.

QOB: "The secret of being boring is to say everything". Voltaire

Well I guess I'm glad I stopped now.

I will leave you with two things.

1. Go to Petra.

2. Happy 23rd Birthday to my oldest daughter Rachael.