We have been lax in our chronicling of this little adventure of late. For that, we have no novel excuses. Here is a slightly more illustrated account of Jordan:
This was what I meant when I said that most of Jordan is half-finished. This isn’t a building under construction.
After we left Aqaba, we went to the ancient city of Petra. Perhaps Petra’s greatest claim to fame is its appearance in Indian Jones and the Last Crusade. Or at least that was its biggest claim to fame to me, prior to visiting. This being most of my knowledge of Petra, I learned a few things on our visit.
The main approach to the ruins is through a narrow canyon called the Siq:
This is the Siq seen from above and far away. The Siq is the tall canyon almost dead center in this picture. If you look closely you can see the path leading away from it towards the right-center of the picture. Along the path leading to the Siq itself there are impressive ruins.
Walking up the Siq only adds to the impressiveness of the place:
The ancient people who built Petra, starting around 200 BC, carved channels all through the Siq to deliver water to the village on the other side of the canyon:
The Siq was also adorned with carve-outs for votive candles, dams, and other structures to re-direct the floods that originally carved out the canyon.
They actually carved this enormous tunnel to redirect floods into an adjacent canyon:
It is roughly 30’ wide, 40’ tall, and 300’ long. Unbelievable.
After a walk through the Siq, the first glimpse you get, obscured by the steep canyon walls, is of the so-called “Treasury” building:
This is actually a misnomer. Bedouins who found these ruins long after they had been abandoned by their original inhabitants mistook the impressive structure for a place where the Egyptian Pharaohs hid their riches:
Actually, these were tombs. Sadly, there are no ancient knights guarding the Holy Grail inside, only expanses with alcoves carved out to hold the bodies of the honored:
Its hard to capture the sheer size and impressiveness of this place with photos, but here’s an attempt:
The person in the photo is Bree, who, granted, is no giant. But perhaps you get the idea…
Petra was special to me in that it combined these amazingly beautiful natural landscapes with fascinating remnants of a long-gone civilization. I’m a sucker for either any day. Together, they were just too much. I could go on for pages and pages about this place.
Petra is more than just the Treasury. There are remnants of the ancient civilization scattered all over the area – from the tops of the mountains into the narrow slot canyons that radiate out from the main village. We spent over 12 hours roaming around over a day and a half, covered the main trails to the famous building and went on self guided tours of the lesser-traveled side canyons, covered miles and miles – and still only scratched the surface.
They converted one of the ancient tombs into a bar:
What better way to cap a day in the heat and dust?
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