Petra, Jordan

Saturday, April 04, 2009 – AQABA, Jordan
Clear blue skies with a hot sun and low humidity! Another perfect summer day…but we are in their winter period

The approach was beautiful as we sailed up the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia was on the starboard side (right) and Egypt on the port side (left) with magnificent mountains and towns and cities at the water’s edge. Aqaba is the only port town for the entire country of Jordan and has been declared an economic zone and granted tax-free status.

We were off the ship by 9:00 and worked to organize taxis to Petra. This took some time as some additional people decided to join us and there were too many “chiefs” negotiating with the taxi drivers. Finally, it seemed to work out and off we went with our driver, Fauzi.

We passed through a customs declaration zone but since we were tourists, it was easy enough. The scenery is incredible. Dry, desert mountains and arid plains with sheep, goats, camels, Bedouin tents, shepherds, small villages…it was very scenic and a picture perfect day for photos. We also saw a few areas where they are harvesting tomatoes. In northern Jordan, their oranges are sent to Harrods in London!

The drive was about 2 hours and driving beside us were approx. 23 buses from the ship!! And we were all headed in the same direction! We had to change money to buy our admission tickets and we entered the gates to PETRA. “Few ruins carry the reputation of mystery, beauty and magic of Jordan’s legendary Petra, that rose-red city half as old as Time”.

The Nabataeans were ancient Arab tribes who originally came from the Arabian Peninsula, more than 2200 years ago and settled in southern Jordan. They were involved in the caravaneering business and became the undisputed masters of the region’s trade routes, levying tolls, protecting caravans laden with Arabian frankincense and myrrh, Indian spices and silks, African ivory and animal hides. Their powerful kingdom stretched to Damascus and included parts of the Sinai and Negev deserts, which was no easy task when you remember the region was dominated by the Greeks, the Hasmonaeans and then the Romans. The Romans finally toppled the kingdom in 106 AD. Even then, Petra and the Nabataean civilization managed to flourish and prosper for many more years until their demise in the 14th century. Petra was rediscovered by a Swiss traveler, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, in 1812.

Wadi Musa is the town closest to Petra, now full of tourist hotels and restaurants. The admission fee to Petra is $30 for one day and upon entering, you have a choice to walk, ride a horse or take a chariot ride down the wadi to the Al-Khazneh (Treasury from Indiana Jones fame). Gene and a friend chose the chariot/carriage and a friend and I walked (prices varied from $35-60 for the one way ride downhill.) The chariot ride was incredibly bumpy as the wheels are thin, the horse goes quite fast and the road is made up of stones approx. a foot wide and long. The sand is not even with the stones so the ruts are deep and the carriage falls into the ruts…The walk was beautiful. Through the As-Siq, the ancient main entrance to Petra. It is an impressive 3600 foot long, deep and narrow gorge of stunning natural beauty. The siq is hemmed in by cliffs soaring up to 240 feet high so you see the bizarre-looking geological formations, colorful rocks, agricultural terraces, water channels cut into the cliffs, dams, and votive-niches carved into the rock.

Just when you wonder, “Where IS that Treasury??”, you come to bend in the road and emerging around the next corner you suddenly come face to face with Al-Khazneh – the pride and joy of Petra and the most beautiful monument there. You feel dwarfed by its size – 90 feet wide and 129 feet high in a courtyard setting. It was carved in the 1st century BC as a tomb of an important Nabataean king and some scholars believe it was later used as a temple. Other sights in the city are: High Place of Sacrifice, the Obelisk Tomb and Bab As-Siq Triclinium, the Theatre (which could hold 7000 people), the Royal Tombs, Urn Tomb (largest of the Royal Tombs and was re-consecrated to serve as a Byzantine church), Palace Tomb, Sextius Florentinus Tomb (the only tomb with an inscription so they know positively for whom it was built in 126 AD – a governor), a Colonnaded Street, Qasr Al-Bint, (a freestanding main temple) and Ad-Deir (the monastery with 800 stairs!!). There are over 34 sites on the local map and there are hundreds more not unearthed -- yet.

Many children hawk their jewelry and donkey rides for the long walks on the sand and cobblestone pathways. The hiking is phenomenal, if you have time, and the scenery all around you is colorful. It is truly a memorable destination for the variety of the ruins, the vast area they are cover and the colors of the intriguing shapes that surround you.

We made our way an hour down the road to Wadi Rum, a “national park” in the pink-sand desert surrounded by the most gorgeous mountains, rock formations and Bedouin communities of the Howeitat tribe. It has been described as “one of the great natural landscapes on the world; a dramatic and inspiring terrain through which pilgrims, traders and herdsmen have journeyed for millennia”. It is a haven for hikers and campers. We arrived in the late afternoon so the sun shining on the mountains was absolutely breathtaking. With the shadows and sunshine changing in each crevice, you can only imagine how beautiful it must be at sunrise or sunset. It is a popular vacation spot for Jordanians. T.E. Lawrence, in “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, wrote this description, “vast, echoing and godlike”.

Wadi means valley. These wadis have offered the easiest passage for millennia to the nomadic Bedouins and to trading caravans en route to or from the Arabian peninsula. Rum refers to the moonscape, an allusion to both the erratic terrain with alternately shifting sand and parched, cracked earth. You can easily see the criss-crossing of fault lines with in various colors. Exposure to rain and wind has sculpted the sandstones into weird shapes that look at times like giant mushrooms, organ-pipes or dropping candle wax. If we had had time, as you can easily spend days here, we could ridden a camel through or taken a 4-wheel jeep drive through the area.

The Howeitat are members of the largest Bedouin tribe in Jordan, who claim descent from the Prophet Mohammed and the Nabataeans. They are no longer fully nomadic for they live in villages in winter, but in the long parched summers they still move around with their flocks and tents in search of pasture. Archeologists have discovered civilization 400,000 years ago in Jordan and there are more than 12,000 sites being explored throughout the country.

We drove the last hour back to the ship and arrived JUST as the vast majority of the 23 buses were unloading! After a nice dinner with new friends and seeing the photos from our tour today (!! – technology is wonderful!!!), we had a fantastic Spanish flamenco show (while sailing in the Red Sea???) and then went out for star gazing. I have a GREAT PHOTO of the moon on my camera which they took THROUGH the eyepiece of the telescope. Again, technology!!! WOW!