Petra

This was a day we’d been anticipating since the beginning of our trip. As we arrived in the dark last night, it was nice to see the hotel and views from it.

I guess business is really slowing down at Petra because of Coronavirus, but by the time we arrived at the Visitor’s Centre, there were already about 20 buses in the lot. This is the number one tourist attraction in Jordan - I suspect due largely to Indiana Jones and the last Crusade. The workers here come from a new village built above the ancient city. They were originally cave dwellers in this area (photo further on in the blog), but were persuaded by the government to move and given the privilege of being the only workers at this tourist site.

In about the first century BC, Petra was is the capital of the Nabataean Empire. The area grew rich because of its trade in frankincense, myrrh and spices. The area was annexed by Rome and thrived until a large earthquake destroyed much of the city in 363AD. There are various forms of transportation you can use to get around here other than just walking, including camels, donkeys, horses and horse drawn carriages. We stayed on our feet.

The first 700 m from the Visitor’s Centre was a fairly open path and soon we saw the first signs of human activity - Djin blocks and the Obelisk tomb.

And then the canyon began. This gorge or Siq as it is known here, was a result of tectonic action, like the ancient earthquake. The rock formations here are stunning, with a lot of ochre colours. There are also amazing streaks of iron running through the stone.

After more than a kilometre of the Siq, you come upon the best known feature of Petra, the Treasury. If I said we were blown away it would be an understatement! I guess they originally thought treasure was stored in the urn above the entrance, thus the bullet holes in the column in an effort to drain it of its wealth. The Treasury was actually a mausoleum. There is no entrance to it and there is no historic cup of Christ here.

Further down the road was the Street of Facades, a row of monumental Nabataean tombs carved in the cliff face. From here, many people were taking donkeys or going by foot to the high place of sacrifice. We missed that.

We also went into one of cave dwellings. Next was a theatre large enough to hold 4000 people that had been carved into the side of the mountain. The back wall of the theatre with its Roman columns, was rebuilt by the Romans.

At this point, 3/4 of the way in to the entire route, we decided enough was enough and we turned around and went back. Our walk up and down hill over mostly good surface but also some original Roman stone roads, was around 6km. Our interpretation of the next two photos is an elephant’s head in one - that’s our take - and a shepherd with camel - that’s their take.

When we left Petra, we made a stop at the Palace Hotel because they have a bar and our hotel is Muslim dry. I guess this part of Jordan is very traditional, where if the women are seen at all, they are burkaed and spent most time indoors with eight kids. Back at our hotel, we played Bite Me on a bench outside our room.y usus utter c tree c

I managed to snag a French blanc de blanc at the Palace and with our Lays chips we had a Jordanian happy hour. Before sunset I took a stroll around this massive hotel site and these of some “end of another fabulous day” shots.

Wadi Rum

Even though we were harassed by street merchants in Egypt, anxious to sell their wares, we have experienced no more begging than we normally would have at home. As we arrived in Jordan yesterday, we were told that Jordan has been closed to Chinese tourists. That might help explain the empty state of our hotel in Amman. Given the volume of Chinese tourists normally everywhere, this may make our remaining tours much more enjoyable. Sorry China! Waiting for breakfast this morning we switched on Al Jazeera English Channel and learned some disturbing facts about women around the world as we celebrate International Women’s Day, like 10 women are killed every day in Mexico by men and the age of sexual consent in the Philippines is 12. But we do have a female guide here so that is progress. So we left our hotel at 8:00 this morning setting out for a fairly long bus ride to the south of Jordan. Amman is named the White Capital so all houses must be covered by white limestone - they are kind of off-white, but let’s not be picky.

Jordan is a very patriarchal society and all couples keep having babies until they have a boy. There is a whole story that goes with that. With the birth of the first son, the parent’s names change to “father or mother “ of that son. Therefore most families are pretty large. Even though it is legal for Muslim men to have more than one wife, it is unusual for all but the very rich. Reasons for woman covering up: 1. Very beautiful 2. Conforming 3. Sun protection 4. Husband requests it. 5. Fashion . No reasons relate to The Muslim religion. The road we took south to Wadi Rum is the same road to Mecca. We now understand that Jordan’s main commerce includes phosphate mining, potash mining, cement production as well as tourism. Shepherds feed their largest sheep more sugar and pen it beside a donkey so the large sheep who will get the leader’s bell thinks the donkey is his mother and follows it. This makes the shepherd’s job much easier. All he has to do is ride the donkey.

Halfway to Wadi Rum we made a pitstop at a place with lots of Dead Sea product.

As we approached Wadi Rum we experienced a lot of bleak desert scenery. Plus, we may have encountered a camel on the road. In the villages along the way you see white tanks on the roofs of the houses. This is because water only flows for 24 hours every week - one day only - so they store water in these tanks for the rest of the week.

Before our 4x4 truck ride, we lunched at a Bedouin tent restaurant. The specialty here was a chicken and rice dish called upside down.

Then it was time to take the fabulously, famous truck ride through the canyons and gorges of the Wadi Rum. This may have included several camel sightings. Dawn did pretty well getting in and out of the truck. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

What a fabulous excursion!!! Then it was back on the bus for a two hour ride north to Petra. On the way, we passed Lawrence of Arabia’s train.

Our road to the hotel Hayat Zaman was called the King’s Way and it wove up the mountains above Wadi Musa. We came to a particularly beautiful outlook just at sunset.

We finally got to our very desert looking hotel, the Hayat Zaman. The rooms all had exterior passage entryways and it was built on the side of the hill so the rooms were on many levels. We had dinner and called it an early night.