Sojourn a journey through life

Petra, Jordan

Following our run down the King's Highway, we spent three nights in Petra at the Petra Gate Hotel. This place is run by a man named Naser - and in my opinion, you'd spend your money well to come to Jordan just to hang out with him at his hotel. We arrived in Petra on a Thursday evening around 5pm, which meant we were lucky enough to be there one of the two days of the week when they run a "Petra By Night" tour that runs 12JD per person (about $18CAD). We hadn't been to Petra in the day time yet, so we started our experience in the evening.

Naser drove us to the Visitor Center where we waited for the tour to begin. There were too many people (in my opinion) unfortunately, but it was still a fantastic experience. From the visitor center, there is a walk down a road for about 15 minutes or so before you arrive at the entrance of the Siq (the Siq is the narrow canyon walkway that you walk down in order to arrive at the Treasury - which is the building that was made famous in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). I don't recall the exact distance from the Visitor Center to the Treasury, but I'm guessing it's a solid 2Km or so.

Coming out of the Siq for the first time, in the dark - arriving at the Treasury is an experience in itself. For the night tour they basically light about 1500 candles which run the length of the Siq and the entire walkway to the Treasury, and also hundreds of candles out in front of the treasury. A bedouin flute player plays a flute from within the Treasury - with amazing echoes throughout the canyon - and we're served tea.

The site of the Treasury is amazing. It is comparable in it's sheer size and grandeur to something you'd expect to see at Angkor Wat. It is so grand, that as I stared at it, I almost couldn't believe it was real - even as I brushed my hands on the pillars, and stared at it with my own eyes. To believe that that Nabataeans had hewn this structure out of the solid rock into the side of the mountain is amazingly unbelievable - even as you stand in front of it. For the uninformed, Petra was the capital city of the Nabataeans (again - for your history lesson, please refer to Wikipedia).

I lugged the tripod along in order to attempt some 1/2 decent long exposure shots, but it was tough with all the people using flashes. Unfortunately, I don't have those shots on the computer right now, and I'm too lazy to go upstairs to get them off an external drive, so you're going to be stuck with the daytime shots.

On our first "day" in Petra - Carly and I walked the Siq and ate lunch at the Treasury, it was a yummy packed lunch that we got from the hotel. After that we made a hike up to the High Place of Sacrifice which was amazing and a wee bit creepy at the same time. The views from the top of the mountain are stunning. I have no idea how it's possible, but at the top on the High Place we met a Bedouin boy (about 6 years old) who rode his donkey all the way to the top. Now, you'd have to actually see this to believe it, because I still have no idea how in the name of all things Holy a donkey made it up there, but I watched him ride down, and I was thankful that we declined his offer for a ride down on the donkey (who, incidentally, was named "Michael Jackson"). At one point the boy asked Carly if we were "together" or "married"... she told him we were, and he said "Oh. You have nice husband.".

Heading down the back of the mountain we bumped into a Bedouin lady who was almost as old as time itself. She stopped us as she fumbled to pull a money pouch from her clothing, and kept trying to hand me a US$5 bill. It took me a while to figure out that she was trying to get me to convert it for her into Jordanian Dinar, but I played my role as the money changer, and we swapped some cash.

Ok - enough talking, time for some pictures. I'll annotate them minimally as we go through them.

Our second day in Petra we followed more of Naser's great advice, and just before entering the Siq, we veered off to the right, where there is a narrower Siq that very few tourists enter. I'm pretty sure this is aided by the large sign that said something like: "Warning, venturing past this point without a guide is very dangerous". He told us to ignore the sign and go anyways. We were glad we did. It took us about an hour or so to walk through this narrow tunnel, with stunning sites along the way. The whole time we ran into only one other person. During the rainy season we were told that this whole area floods, diverting water away from the main Siq, but we were there in dry season.

Once we were through this Siq, we ventured off to the left where we made our way to the Monastery. The Monastery is of similar design to the Treasury, except MUCH larger. It's also at the top of a huge climb of around 800 steps up the side of a mountain. Carly and I did so much walking in the course of our three days in Petra that our legs were completely exhausted. After our climb down from the monastery, Carly and I opted to pay for a camel ride back to the Treasury. We wanted to try a camel ride at some point, and we were exhausted, so this seemed a good of time as any. For the record - camel rides suck. If you're male, and you ever wish to have children, I highly recommend NEVER getting on a camel. Ever.

At the place we were staying we met a couple of great guys (one from New York and one from Pennsylvania). The guy from New York's parents were American diplomats who had been living in Jerusalem for three years, so we ended up meeting up with them in Jerusalem (yesterday and earlier today, actually) to hang out and see some sites.

We enjoyed our afternoons and evenings at the Petra Gate Hotel thoroughly. Smoking a water pipe with Eric and Michael, playing backgammon with Naser and random taxi drivers who would stop by, getting Arabic number lessons playing with dice from said taxi drivers, and just chilling out with the local folks who were thrilled to sit down outside Naser's hotel and hang out to have a conversation. This was an absolutely amazing time - I'd go back to Jordan in a heartbeat.

Oh! Time for me to run. Shabbat (Sabbath) is beginning and Carly and I need to run down to the Western Wall!