Sitting Above Petra

The first thing you realize when you come to Petra is the sheer quantity and quality of the building, tombs, ruins, etc. Like many of the sites in Luxor, when I arrived in Petra I was surprised to find that the site was more than just the main highlights that are shown on all the postcards. When you visit monuments in Europe (like the Coloseum) you undoubtedly walk away with the "that's it?" or the "I thought it would be bigger" feeling. Petra on the other hand seems to go on forever, and I could have easily spent 3-4 days exploring the different trails and viewpoints. More importantly, I find the category of "ruins" to a bit of misnomer. When I first saw Petra (or the Valley of the Kings, Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple... etc), I was amazed at the quality of the condition of the "ruins". The details are all still there and it doesn't take much imagination to see why this was voted one of the new 7 wonders. I think that when most people visit palatine hill or the old city in Rome, they sit there with the pop-up book, looking back and forth between the ruins and the book, thinking "wow this is what it looked like thousands of years ago". Whereas with Petra you just walk through and you can see exactly what it looked like thousands of years ago. I think the best way to describe it is, "wow!". These pictures here show some of the detail of the buildings and the amazing color of the surrounding rock formations.

Just a quick replay of my two days at Petra. Started off walking through the Siq. From the pictures, I thought it was just a short walkway, but it was actually over 1 km long. The Siq sorta like a gorge that is paved at the bottom where the river bed dried out. I overheard some guides (I was too cheap to pay for my own) saying that the Siq was created by a river, but I read that it was actually created by tectonic plate movement. When you reach the end of the Siq, you pass through a narrow section that leads to the Treasury. The Lonely Planet described it as a fascinating walkway that helps to build the anticipation of your first viewing of the Treasury. While, I think that is a bit melodramatic, I would have to agree with the overall feeling.

After I visited the Treasury, I climbed up to visit many of the tombs and the various Roman ruins. It seems like there is a Roman Theatre in every city in Jordan! I only spent a half day during my first day at Petra, because the heat was just overwhelming. Turned out to be a good and bad idea... the next day was much cooler, BUT I ended up spending 9 hours walking up and down hills to see what the main sites that I wanted to check out. Below is a picture of the main tombs.

During the second day, I walked through the entire site and went straight to the monastery, which is a 30-45 min walk uphill (after trekking the entire length of Petra). The monastery has many of the same visual and architectual features as the Treasury, but the great part about it is the uphill trek scares away most of the visitors, so its not as crowded.

After the monastery, I spent the rest of the morning visiting more of the tombs and random ruins and just taking pictures of the scenery. At the end of the day, I decided to make a second climb up to see the Treasury again... this time from above. After climbing up stairs for 25 min, I managed to get lost for a half hour. That's the great part about traveling in the Middle East - there are many interesting viewpoints, trails, and sites that are off the main paths... that kinda give you that feeling of exploration. The only problem is that these "off the beaten path" trails are not very well marked. After getting lost and resting for a while, I finally followed the trail of litter and footsteps to the main lookout point over Petra (which is the picture at the very top of this post). Just call me Macgyver for my ingenuity... or maybe Hansel and Grettel? The view from up top was awesome and it was especially relaxing to just be by myself staring down at all the tourists. I ended up propping myself up on the rock with the best viewpoint and taking a nap (surprising how comfy rocks are!) until a pair of german tourists woke up me to steal my viewing spot.

The best part was on the way down. I found what I thought was a new path way and I was proud of myself for uncovering this new trail... but when I got to the bottom, I realized that it was the same trail that I took up. Yes... I am directionally challenged. The funny part was that I ran into a group of tourists at the bottom that couldn't figure out how to get up... and they asked me for directions!?! I told them to simply walk up the stairs until there were no more paved steps... then look for the trail of litter.

By the end of the day, I remembered how hard it is to hike/walk for 9 hours. My legs were sore for 3 days... maybe I'm just outta shape. Also, sorry the pictures are not so great, I was battling the sunlight and tried to use a photo editor to color correct them... I think I went a lover overboard.

Well... sorry this post wasn't so interesting!