The Rose Red City of Petra

An early start at 7am saw us breakfasting on a boiled egg, cheese, pitta bread, jam, two mandarin oranges and coffee for JD1.50. Talking to Bernadette we found that what we had thought was a disused Turkish bath the previous evening is actually the start of the Wadi Musa, the Spring or River of Moses. This is where, in the Old Testament, Moses struck the rock and water bubbled up. Today it is still bubbling up and running down the street past our hotel - Moses forgot to turn the rock off.

Saving some of the cheese and bread for lunch, we caught our free taxi down to the entrance and paid for a 2 day pass. Being winter, it was 50% discount so amounted to JD13.00 each. But that's A$26.00 each. Ouch! Still quite expensive!! One thing we were delighted about was that there were few tourists. In summer, Petra can have up to 5,000 tourists a day but today, in winter, there were perhaps 100 camera-packing sight-seers walking through the gates. It might be chilly but there are advantages to taking holidays at offpeak times.

Everyone has heard of Petra, the mysterious city that only reappeared in the early 1800s after the Swiss adventurer Johann Burckhardt and his Bedouin guide rediscovered the lost city at Wadi Musa. But what was Petra? We sought more information in the Visitors Centre.
More than 2000 years ago, Petra was home to the Nabataeans, a nomadic Arab nation who settled here to trade in the ancient world. Spices, silks and ivory were transported here from China and India and caravans carried these luxuries through the heat and dust of the Negev and Sinai to Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome.
Conquered by the Romans in 106 AD, the Nabataean empire became a province of a province of Arabia, with Petra as the capital.However, trade routes were later diverted into Syria and a more direct route to Rome and by the sixteenth century, Petra had completely vanished as far as the Western world was concerned.

  And now here we were at the entrance, ready for a day's walking. Many locals offer rides by horse or camel from the entrance to the Siq and beyond to the Treasury but we decided to walk and take in the experience slowly. From the entrance there is a walk of around a kilometre to the beginning of the Siq.
The Siq is not actually a gorge, rather it is one rock which has been cleft by earthquakes. At the sides of the walls, you can see the remains of water channels cut into the cliffs (see photo on left).
These were put there by the Nabataeans to keep the road clear of flooding and also to conserve the water, which was carried into cisterns at intervals along the Siq.
The Siq is 1.6km long and winds its way towards the valley of Petra, 100m cliffs towering on either side. Carvings and inscriptions mark the walls and the colours of the sandstone glow rose, yellow and gold in the sun.
Suddenly, the end of the Siq is in sight and we have our first glimpse of the Treasury - Al Khazneh. It was nicknamed the Treasury because legend had it that the urn perched on the top of the temple contained gold and jewels. This, of course, was the building that appeared in "Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade".
Believe me, it really is as amazing as people tell you. It's simply huge, for starters, 30 metres wide and 43 metres high and its totally carved into the cliff face. None of this was brought here. The stone masons simply started with a bare rock face and worked their way backwards. It must have taken years! Originally carved as a tomb for a long forgotten Nabataean king, it is believed it was also later used as a temple.
We continued past the Treasury, again refusing offers of camel or donkey rides from the local Bedouin who were crowding the sandy space in front of the Treasury.
Tourists were scarce today and business was slow. We walked on past the 7,000 seat Roman Amphitheatre, again carved from solid rock, seats and all.

Our first major walk was to the Place of High Sacrifice. The climb to top takes about an hour and involves many steep rock stairs (see left).
At the top, 1035m above sea level, are obelisks believed to be of the two Nabataean Gods, Dushara and Al'Uzza. Dushara was a fertility God, whilst Al'Uzza was Goddess of Springs and Water.
An altar gives credence to the possibility that animal sacrifices were made here. (Photo below centre)
The view is fantastic, overlooking the entire valley of Petra and also out to the village of Wadi Musa. (photo below left) Far across the valley, you can see the white Tomb of Aaron, Moses' Brother on Jebel Haroun.
Here I met Alia, a young Bedouin girl who lives near Snake Monument, towards the back of the valley. She climbs here every day to sell jewellery and trinkets. (Photo below right) I offered her one of my tiny koala keyrings which she exchanged delightedly for a small stone owl.
Sharing a mandarin orange with Alia, we had a picnic lunch of cheese and pitta bread before we made our descent.
Alia showed us how to descend the back way past the Lion Fountain and told us to say hello to her grandmother.
We met Granny halfway down, almost blind from cataracts in both eyes but still fit enough to climb halfway up the mountain each day to sit in her dusty black robes offering cups of mint tea to the tourists and selling ropes of amber beads. I was totally amazed that she could climb so high with such limited vision but she simply shrugged her shoulders. "I have to make money somehow. This is a good position for my sales." she said. Take a look at the path on the left!! She climbed this daily!

In the valley once more, we came across the Garden Tomb. There is a large cistern for storing water at the front of the tomb and behind it is a Triclinium. One of the Nabataean rites associated with the dead was the celebration of funeral banquets at which wine was served, often in a rock-cut dining room situated near the tomb known as a “triclinium”.
Perhaps as a result of this, their God Dushara, originally a fertility symbol, later became associated with Dionysus, the Greek God of wine.
Opposite the Garden Tomb was the Roman Soldier's Tomb, so-called because the statues in Roman armour suggest this tomb may have been carved after the Romans conquered Petra in 106AD.

Continuing along Wadi Farasa, the dry riverbed of the Farasa River, we became a trifle disorientated. We had intended to walk towards the Cardo Maximus but we ended up in an area where many of the Bedouin live.
Once a nomadic people, these Bedouin have adapted the smaller tombs in this area into warm, comfortable dwellings for themselves and their livestock, mainly herds of goats but also camels for the tourists to ride.
Their fields stretch beyond the tourist areas with tractors ploughing the sandy soil and small boys on donkeys carrying away the many stones.

Friendly and outgoing, the Bedouin eke a precarious existence between agriculture and tourism, selling trinkets and artefacts to the tourists, and hiring their donkeys, horses and camel for rides. Even the small children will offer you a tray of rose coloured rocks for selection.
We came across a beautiful Bedouin woman named Soraya with her small son Ishamael (pictured above right).
She told us we were near Snake Monument and offered to show us the way. Accepting, we were accompanied by a French couple who were also looking for the monument. Soraya was herding goats which she took with her.
After showing us the monument (shown behind Soraya in the photo) she asked us back to her tent for tea and to see a newborn baby in the tribe. Unfortunately, we had to decline as it was getting late in the afternoon. One of the downsides of travelling in winter is the shorter daylight hours. We figured it would take us at least an hour to walk back to the Siq and then we had to negotiate our way to the Entrance. Sadly, we made our farewells - again leaving a small koala or two to remind them of the Travelling Aussies.

Walking briskly, we found our way back to the main route through the valley - retracing the Roman Cardo Maximus - and found our way to the Siq. True enough, it was dark at 4.30pm when we eventually walked out of Petra and had a coffee at a local cafe whilst waiting for the taxi to take us back to the hotel. We estimated we had walked 30km altogether, much of it up steep mountainsides and we were tired and hungry.
Stopping at a roadside stall, Guy bought a khefiyah in the red and white Jordanian colours and the black agal which holds it in place. He figured it would be useful to keep out the cold as well as be an excellent souvenir.

Back at the Mussa Springs hotel, we had kebabs and rice for dinner and organised to have lunch boxes prepared for the following day (JD2.50 each). Totally exhausted, we could barely shower before we fell asleep. And more walking tomorrow!