Petra

 Saturday, December 17, 2011

After our brief stop at the beach, we drove approximately 2 hours to Petra.  This is a city carved of stone built deep in a canyon.  It is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  When I was a child, my mom read me a book that took place in Petra, and ever since then, I have wanted to go.  It was one of the places I was most excited to visit.  And here we finally were!

Petra has been around for over 5000 years.  It was lost to the outside world and discovered again in the 1800s.  However, no one would believe the man that was discovered, so it was years later before tourists started coming.

We started walking and caught our first glimpse of some carved facades. 

There were caves hollowed out that were used as water cisterns.  Flash floods are common in this area and the people learned to collect and save the water for future use.

We entered the narrow canyon under the remains of an old archway.  Water troughs went along the edge of the canyon walls all the way down. 

Entering the canyon at Petra

 We saw a few trees here and there, and more stray cats. 

These carved elephants were meant to scare unwanted visitors.

Hiking through the canyon at Petra

Our first glimpse of the treasury

The Treasury

The treasury is the most famous facade in Petra.  It was used in the Indiana Jones movie.  We couldn't go inside, but we were told that it is just a big empty room that was probably used more like a town hall.   It is called the treasury because people used to think there was gold or other treasures stored in the top center set of columns.  The Bedouins that used to live here up until the 1980s shot at that spot over and over until they determined there wasn't actually any treasure. 

 I really made it here!

The amphitheater

 We went inside some of the doors, and there were just empty rooms--not too much to see inside.

We were told that it takes a couple of days to hike through and see all of Petra, and there is still more that could be excavated. 

 It was amazing!

Grandma and Grandpa Harper were able to take one of these carriages down to the treasury so they didn't have to hike the whole way. 

We ate our lunch in the coffee shop below, and then decided to hike up to the facades up the mountain.

Kate in the huge doorway.

 There wasn't much to look at inside this huge doorway.  Just a big empty room.  However, the streaks of colorful rock were beautiful. 

This was our view from the top.

Eventually it was time to hike back out.  We had gotten separated from our guide and part of our tour group, and there was sort of a misunderstanding about when and where we were supposed to meet so we just hiked back out on our own.

We had to turn back for one final look at the spectacular view of the treasury through the narrow canyon walls. 

As we were hiking out, David finally got William to go to sleep in the backpack.  He had just been asleep a couple of minutes when a Muslim woman spotted him.  She was obviously very taken with him and his blonde hair.  In fairly good English she asked if she could give him a kiss.  I figured she would just give him a small peck on the cheek, so I agreed.  However, she gave him no small kiss.  She grabbed his face in her hands and gave him the loudest smooch I have ever heard.  Startled, he woke up and groggily looked around, but thankfully settled back down to sleep.  It was hilarious!  William definitely generated a lot of attention wherever we went.   

Kate got to ride a horse on the way back.  It was her first time riding a horse and she was very excited. 

We met our tour guide and group back at the bus.  It was time to be getting on our way, but I really wanted a Petra souvenir.  We were scheduled to stop at a "bazaar" the following day, so I asked our guide if there would be Petra souvenirs there, or if I should get something here.  He promised me that there would be lots of things to choose from--everything I could want--so I got on the bus and drove away.  I shouldn't have believed him.

We drove for a couple more hours north to Amman, Jordan, where we spent the night.  It was late when we got in, and we once again fell asleep, exhausted, after a very full day of hiking. 

A beautiful sunset over a mosque at the end of a spectacular day