This is going to be a huge post because we spent 9 hours walking around (and up) Petra with three cameras. I probably should have different posts for the various parts, but it's easier to have one heading!We stayed at the Movenpick hotel right next to the entrance to Petra. We had the whole enormous breakfast buffet to ourselves!
The Lonely Planet says it's vital to wear study footwear and take sunscreen, hat, and water. We remembered the sturdy shoes!
Petra is strewn through huge mountains and wadis, over 60 square kilometres but there's only one entrance, the Siq. Petra's in there (photo below). Do you see that black "crack"? That's the siq, the entrance!
It was built by the Nabataeans around 400 BCE. It was chiselled by hand into sheer cliffs in this windblown landscape. The Nabataeans empire back then covered Jordan, Israel, Styria and Saudi Arabia and Petra was its centre (and was the wealthiest city of its day). They were traders and Petra was at the crossroads of trade routes from Asia and Arabia so the caravans (camel trains) carrying textiles, spices, precious metals and incense were given stopped here so the merchants had water and food and shelter in this hard arid environment. The Nabataeans also collected a tax on all goods that came through their kingdom. At its peak there were 30,000 people living in Petra.
The Siq is almost 2km long and although people describe it as a canyon it's actually created by tectonic forces pulling a single block apart. It's 200m high and is like a magic corridor snaking its way to the hidden city. This is the entrance, just after the ruins of a dam which was needed to hold water from a spring but also to stop flashflooding (which happens a couple of times a year). It also protected Petra from invaders and because it was the only entrance it was a busy route. One website had recommendations on how to take photos without a bottleneck of tourists but we didn't have a problem. We had the Siq to ourselves!
Mum & I took hundreds of photos just walking through the Siq, it was majestic, like a cathedral only more magnificent because it was created by nature. The brown, yellow, ochre hues and tones of sandstone were magical, and we could see where the grain of rock on one side matched the other side (from the tectonic split). It's only about 2 metres wide.
The Nabataeans created their own cursive script, which is said to be the forerunner of Arabic, and they had expert hydraulic engineers who built dames, cisterns and water channels to protect the site. Below is a photo of a 2000 year old terracotta pipe which carried water into Petra.
The Siq was sprinkled with wall niches which held statues of the Nabataean's god, Dushara. They were touchstones to remind pilgrims they were leaving the outside world and were entering a holy city. I've only put in a few photos, but I think you'll get the feeling. The light changed around every swerve of the Siq and when we walked back 9 hours later it was completely different again.
The guide books wrote about how people usually rush through the siq in anticipation of seeing the famous Treasury. We didn't because we were mesmorised by the stone and I actually didn't realise the Treasury was at the end of it. Until I saw this ... (photo below on the right).
Then THIS!
The Treasury is the most photographed tomb in Petra, which I think is because it's so spectacular after walking through the Siq.
This (below) is the cliff just to the left of the Treasury. It shows the rock the Nabataean's carved into.
The Nabataeans built from the top down. It's still a mystery exactly how they built it, but this niche carvings up the side are probably for feet for the labourers to climb up.
The details of the column capitals is amazing - Hellenistic style (Greek)
The treasury is a tomb but they don't know who for, it might have been the King's wife. It's basically a facade although in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade it looked liked the entrance to an enormous cavernous building. It's called the treasury because there was a story that an Egyptian pharoah hid treasure in there, but the pock-marked urn proved that it was solid.
The sandstone was beautiful, I took so many photos because they looked like abstract paintings, it was hard to believe they were formed from sandstone sedimentary rocks from the earth's crust with minerals (quartz) and rock grains.
The theatre (not ampitheatre which means it's a full circle) was first built by the Nabataeans, but when the Romans arrived in 106 AD.
We saw a tent down Wadi Musa and because we water (and hats andd sunscreen) we headed in that direction. It was 34 degrees but it was a dry heat so we weren't perspiring but we were parched and there wasn't any shade!
On the way to the tent the most traffic we'd seen all morning passed us - a herd of goats.
We kept walking past the Colonnaded street which is the beginning of Petra's city centre. The street was build around 106AD, there are a few remains of the market area but a lot of the city centre was destroyed by earthquakes.
Even though we had been thirsty during the day, we didn't take water on our hike to the Monastary. (Mum didn't think it would take that long!). It's hidden high in the hills, and to get there you have to walk up an ancient rock-cut path of about 1000 steps and rocky crevices which was the old processional route and (Lonely Planet again) "is a spectacle of weird and wonderfully tortured stone." It was about 2pm when we started off and the sun was high in the sky, so I refashioned a top into a hat!
It wasn't just the stones that were tortured! I stopped to grab shade when I could, which wasn't often. There aren't many photos of the way up, we were to preoccupied climbing up and up and up and ...
It was so worth it .. the Monastery is bigger than the Treasury and you can see Israel and the Palestinian territories from up there.
We were exhausted when we got to the Monastery, Mum thought the stairs would never end and I was so hot BUT there was the Cave teahouse, so we had more water and chips sitting with the magnificence to view in awe.
I moved to the comfy benches with the typical Bedouin blankets covering them. Again we had the Monastery to ourselves!
There are no photos after we left the Monastery because we just wanted to start the 2 hour walk back to the Siq! Here's one after we'd descended the mountain passing through the Roman Colonnaded street going towards the royal tombs (below)
We kept being asked by desperate locals to ride by camel or donkey, but we didn't because we didn't want to spend extra money and because there was a sign at the entrance to Petra advising people to consider their weight when riding a donkey because they are not big animals and were fairly skinny.
Earthquakes in 363AD and 551AD ruined much of the city and Petra became forgotten, it was a 'lost city' except for the local Bedouins who kept its whereabouts secret. It's a bit like Angkor Wat, when Henry Mouhot "discovered" it for the West in 1860. A Swiss explorer Jean Louis Burckhardt who had studied Arabic, science and medicine at Cambridge University in UK, converted to Islamn and adopted local customs as he explored the Middle East. In 1812 when he was travelling between Damascus and Cairo he heard locals tal about fantastic ruins hidden in the mountains of Wadi Musa. So he disguised himself as a local. Burckhardt wrote "I, therefore, pretented to have made a vow to have slaughtered a goat in honour of Aaron, who tomb I knew was situated at the extremity of the valleu, and by this stratagem I thought that I should have the means of seeing the valley on the way to the tomb."
The plan worked and he rode through the Siq and had to hide his astonishment when he saw the Treasury. This exposed Petra to Western Europeans who at that time had an obsession with the Orient (Arabia and Asia). The first English archeological term arrived in 1929 and there have been archeologists working there ever since.
I saw a documentary where an American team this year is used cutting edge technology with laser and MRI type x-rays to try and understand exactly how the Nabataeans built Petra.
I'm not surprised Burckhardt was astonished when he saw the Treasury! The photos below were taken 9 hours after the first photo, when the sun was lower. The colours of all of Petra change with the sun, and this photo shows why Petra is known as the Pink City.
The Treasury is the most photographed tomb in Petra, which I think is because it's so spectacular after walking through the Siq.
This (below) is the cliff just to the left of the Treasury. It shows the rock the Nabataean's carved into.
The Nabataeans built from the top down. It's still a mystery exactly how they built it, but this niche carvings up the side are probably for feet for the labourers to climb up.
The treasury is a tomb but they don't know who for, it might have been the King's wife. It's basically a facade although in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade it looked liked the entrance to an enormous cavernous building. It's called the treasury because there was a story that an Egyptian pharoah hid treasure in there, but the pock-marked urn proved that it was solid.
We continued past the outer siq towards the Street of Facades where the rock walls are riddled with tombs and houses built. We clamboured up to the higher stories to look inside some of the tombs.
The tombs were basically cavities built into the rock and where funeral banquets were held.
"The organic nature of Petra's cave-like tombs, the stunning natural colour of the rock and pure grandeur of the landscape, it's easy to see how Petra has captured the imagination of generations of travellers" - this website is so right.
We'd been in Petra about 3 hours by now ... looking for where else to explore!
We saw a tent down Wadi Musa and because we water (and hats andd sunscreen) we headed in that direction. It was 34 degrees but it was a dry heat so we weren't perspiring but we were parched and there wasn't any shade!On the way to the tent the most traffic we'd seen all morning passed us - a herd of goats.
I didn't mention that we had a guide for the morning which is how we were told lots of information. Faisal was about 50 years old, and he told us that he needed to look for another job because he has a family to support and in the past few years there have been few tourists. He said that the Syrian War damaged Jordan's safe reputation and even though Jordan is safe people are worried about going to a country bordering Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Another guide said the hotel occupancy rate in Petra is 21% this month and that lots of hotels have had to close down.
Jordan's economy has been badly affected, but as awful as this is it meant we had Petra almost to ourselves. You can see in the photos that there are no tourists around.
We stayed in the tent for about an hour, with dusty, rusty knick-knacks waiting to be sold. Our guide had left us (we only had him for the morning) so we read the Lonely Planet and websites (Mum bought SIM cards in Jordan so we had 3G) to plan our afternoon. Cans of drink and packets of chips sustained us .
The big decision we had to make was whether we would climb for an hour to see the Monastery. We hadn't seen photos of it and weren't sure if we had enough energy or if it was worth it. A donkey driver (who was actually trying to get us to travel by donkey) urged us to go, he said it was better "good". Mum read the Lonely Planet and declined the donkey offer because it said "donkeys can be hired but you're better off walking as the donkeys travel fast and the way is steep and slippery, making for an uncomfortable and dangerous journey." At least we had our hiking boots on!
On the way we went to Byzantine church which was first built by the Nabataens but was redesigned and expanded by the Byzantines around 530AD but it was badly damaged by repeated earthquakes. However, the Byzantine floor mosaics are apparently some of the best in the region.
There was also shade in the Church, so I snapchatted some photos!
Even though we had been thirsty during the day, we didn't take water on our hike to the Monastary. (Mum didn't think it would take that long!). It's hidden high in the hills, and to get there you have to walk up an ancient rock-cut path of about 1000 steps and rocky crevices which was the old processional route and (Lonely Planet again) "is a spectacle of weird and wonderfully tortured stone." It was about 2pm when we started off and the sun was high in the sky, so I refashioned a top into a hat!
The first steps up ...
This photo was taken half way up ... you can see the wadi floor through the middle!
It wasn't just the stones that were tortured! I stopped to grab shade when I could, which wasn't often. There aren't many photos of the way up, we were to preoccupied climbing up and up and up and ...
We were exhausted when we got to the Monastery, Mum thought the stairs would never end and I was so hot BUT there was the Cave teahouse, so we had more water and chips sitting with the magnificence to view in awe.
I moved to the comfy benches with the typical Bedouin blankets covering them. Again we had the Monastery to ourselves!
We kept being asked by desperate locals to ride by camel or donkey, but we didn't because we didn't want to spend extra money and because there was a sign at the entrance to Petra advising people to consider their weight when riding a donkey because they are not big animals and were fairly skinny.
Earthquakes in 363AD and 551AD ruined much of the city and Petra became forgotten, it was a 'lost city' except for the local Bedouins who kept its whereabouts secret. It's a bit like Angkor Wat, when Henry Mouhot "discovered" it for the West in 1860. A Swiss explorer Jean Louis Burckhardt who had studied Arabic, science and medicine at Cambridge University in UK, converted to Islamn and adopted local customs as he explored the Middle East. In 1812 when he was travelling between Damascus and Cairo he heard locals tal about fantastic ruins hidden in the mountains of Wadi Musa. So he disguised himself as a local. Burckhardt wrote "I, therefore, pretented to have made a vow to have slaughtered a goat in honour of Aaron, who tomb I knew was situated at the extremity of the valleu, and by this stratagem I thought that I should have the means of seeing the valley on the way to the tomb."
The plan worked and he rode through the Siq and had to hide his astonishment when he saw the Treasury. This exposed Petra to Western Europeans who at that time had an obsession with the Orient (Arabia and Asia). The first English archeological term arrived in 1929 and there have been archeologists working there ever since.
I saw a documentary where an American team this year is used cutting edge technology with laser and MRI type x-rays to try and understand exactly how the Nabataeans built Petra.
I'm not surprised Burckhardt was astonished when he saw the Treasury! The photos below were taken 9 hours after the first photo, when the sun was lower. The colours of all of Petra change with the sun, and this photo shows why Petra is known as the Pink City.
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