Petra: the Rose-Red City

Petra was amazing and everything I expected it to be.

It was voted one of the new seven wonders of the world and is without a doubt Jordan’s greatest tourist attraction.

Petra is a vast, unique city carved into the sheer rock face by the Nabataeans, an Arab people who settled here more than 2000 years ago. It was an important junction for the silk, spice and other trade routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome. It is famous for it's temples, tombs and towering pink and orange cliffs and most of it's 800 monuments were carved into pink sandstone rocks.



We bought a 2 day pass so we could space out our sightseeing out over 2 half days instead of one long hot day....37C in the desert has a time limit before you can't take it anymore. We showed up at 7am on our first day in hopes of beating the crowds, getting shots of the magnificent Treasury without people in our pictures and doing some hiking in the cooler shadier morning. We succeeded!

 

 

You enter the city through the Siq, a 1 km long narrow gorge which is flanked on either side by soaring 80m high pink limestone cliffs. Just walking through the Siq is an experience in itself. The colours and formations of the rocks are dazzling. As you reach the end of the Siq you see a narrow break in the cliffs and get your first glimpse of the Treasury...it's truly magical and awe-inspiring.

The Treasury poking through at the end of the siq.

The massive facade of the treasury is 30m wide and 43m high and carved out of the pink rock face...it dwarfs everything around it. It was carved in the early 1^st century as the tomb of an important Nabataean king and represents the engineering genius of these ancient people.

 

After appreciating the Treasury...we had it practically to ourselves!...we decided to hike to the sacrificial high place. It is found at the top of a mountain and you climb by way of over 800 rock cut stairs. When you arrive you find the mountain top levelled with 2 huge obelisks carved right out of the rock and platforms for the animal sacrifice. We hiked down over the backside on a different path of more rock cut steps and passed several carved tombs and temples while making our way back to the main city.

 

 

 

 

 

By then it was 1pm and getting HOT!...we were petra'd out and after about 20km of hiking we were done! We hiked the long route back to our hotel, where the pool lives, passing hoards of crowds coming in while we were escaping... we we were so glad to have gotten up early. We coincidentally ran into our French friends we met in Madaba in a tomb at petra and joined them for dinner last night in the Cave Bar (they built a bar and restaurant into a 2000year old tomb that was located just before the entrance to the Siq...it was very cool!)
 

 

 

 

Today we are spending the morning and early afternoon at the pool and will head back into Petra at 3pm to visit the museum, hike anoother 1000 steps up to see the Monestary, which is supposed to be Petra's most glorious tomb and way bigger than the Treasury! Finally, we'll watch the sun set over the Treasury and other tombs before heading out for the night.