Woolly says – It had been an early start with our driver picking us up at 6.15am, Jo had booked us onto a day tour with Get your Guide, a company we have used previously. Although we aren’t fans of tours for our day it was needed as the wonder, we were off to see was nearly a 3 hour drive away. The driver was lovely and as we settled in for the long drive, I sat watching the world go past which mainly seemed to involve lots of desert views.
Coming off the main roads we headed along some much smaller lanes going round bends and up and down the contours of the land, a large mountain of rocks appeared, and our driver stopped for a few minutes to allow us to take a couple of snaps of our destination which was behind the rocks.
Another ten minutes passed and we stopped again to look at Wadi Musa which means “Valley of Moses” the story goes that this was the place where Moses banged his large stick on the ground and water came up. A small room off the road was the exact place and we all took it in turns to taste the pure water he had left behind.
The level of excitement was building as the last few kilometres passes and then there in front of us was a large sign saying “I love Petra” with beaming smiles we thanked our driver and headed towards on of the 7 newer wonders of the world.
Petra originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmōis is a historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system, Petra is also called the “Rose City” because of the colour of the sandstone from which it is carved. The area around Petra has been inhabited from as early as 7000 BC, and the Nabataeans might have settled in what would become the capital city of their kingdom as early as the 4th century BC. The Nabataeans were nomadic Arabs who invested in Petra’s proximity to the incense trade routes by establishing it as a major regional trading hub.
Petra fell to the Romans, who annexed Nabataea and renamed it as Arabia Petraea. Petra’s importance declined as sea trade routes emerged, and after an earthquake in 363 BC destroying many of its structures. In the Byzantine era, several Christian churches were built, but the city continued to decline and by the early Islamic era it was abandoned except for a handful of nomads. It remained unknown to the western world until 1812, when Swiss traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt rediscovered it. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985. UNESCO has described Petra as “one of the most precious cultural properties of man’s cultural heritage.
As the women flashed our Jordan passes, I raced through the entrance hall and onto the start of the walk down.
I knew that my small friend was extra excited but had told him that he must stay close to us at all times as there would be thousands of people there and I wasn’t going to be looking for him.
Woolly says – I slowed down and we walked down the pebbly pathway passing the horses that many of the tourists would take, riding down would have been even better as I was keen to follow in Indiana Jones’ footsteps but apparently they were a rip off so I had to be content with walking.
We passed two of the Djinn Blocks of which there were a number in the city, huge cubes of sandstone which had once been beautifully decorated as monuments to the spirits. Down and down, we went with the sun blazing overhead the sweat was already bubbling on the women’s foreheads. Just as they looked as though they had just come out of the showers we arrived at the Siq.
A narrow gorge which leads visitors into the city itself resulted from a natural splitting of the mountain in the early AD’s, once there would have been a grand entrance but of that we could see nothing. It was wonderfully shaded and delightful to walk through spotting carvings and caves as well as the water channels. In fact, it was brilliant and well worth coming just to see that.
Areas of rocks had a rainbow of colours and shapes including one that looked remarkably like a fat gorilla. As we turned each corner, we kept expecting to find people, but it was gloriously empty of humans except for mine.
After a wonderful 1.2Km stroll we found a couple of people taking pictures of something that looked spectacular.
As we came into the bright sunshine once more there in front of me was the treasure of all time, The Treasury.
At almost 40 metres high the intricately decorated rock face with Corinthian capitals and friezes, figures and more was one of the best things I had ever laid my eyes on. Constructed in the 1st century BC it is said to have held the pharaoh’s treasure.
With just a few tourists we were able to take pictures to our hearts content before settling into the extremely handy little café for some most refreshing drinks so that we could continue to admire the immenseness of it.
Rested and refreshed we picked up our bags and headed onward into the Street of Facades, a row of monumental Nabataen tombs carved into the soft sandstone.
Although much of the decoration had faded over the centuries, they were still outstanding and even better we were able to peep into a couple of them.
Passing another handy café and a number of dogs and cats we hot footed it to the Theatre. Carved into the side of the mountain the theatre offered three rows of seats separated by passageways, seven staircases to ascend to the auditorium to accommodate up to 6000 spectators. The information board told us that this was the only theatre in the world carved into a rock and boy was it stunning with all colours of the rock face showing up. I could only begin to imagine how magnificent it had been in its prime.
We could see a couple of people higher up on the rocks near to what looked like a tomb, I managed to climb up with my humans close behind who seemed to be leaking galloons of fluid at each step. The route was easy, but it gave us some wonderful views across the valley to the theatre.
Finally we reach the Unayshu Tomb. The doorway in still held some of its finery but inside had reverted back to rock face, but what a rock face with the wonderful colours of the rocks on show and a number of places where coffins would have resided it gave us an idea of how large and wonderful it could have been.
With the women staggering behind we headed straight across to the café and sat under the air con with freezing cold cans of drink to recover.
Once slightly revived we set off on our return journey, up to this point we had probably seen no more than a hundred tourists which puzzled us as we had expected huge amounts of them everywhere blocking our shots. As we started our walk back to the visitor centre we found them, surge after surge arriving in the baking heat and all heading towards us, the Treasury was now surrounded and the camels who had been resting happily on our downward journey were carrying people about whilst it seemed as though the whole world had arrived at once.
Ploughing our way through the masses we entered the Siq again and realised in the shade as we fought our way through finally arriving at the end, we headed straight for an ice cream to get us through the last part of the walk which was uphill in the 35 degree heat. On and on we went all of us flagging badly as we repassed the horses and finally arrived back at the start several galloons of water less and feeling like broken creatures. Falling into some seats at the café all of us guzzled bottles of water down as if we hadn’t drunk in weeks until we could hold a coherent conversation.
There was still the museum to tackle as I looked between Zoe and the mammoth knowing that none of us wanted to move but as we wouldn’t be back, we finished our drinks and tottered towards the incredibly modern looking building.
Woolly says – the bliss of air con was incredible and although we hadn’t the entered to read all the information we wandered past the exhibits of décor that had once graced Petra and statues of things that had been found during excavations, I’m sure it was wonderful but we had all had enough. Luckily as we headed back into the baking heat, we could see our lovely driver waiting for us, collapsing into the cool interior of the car we sat in stunned silence for most of the return journey.
What a day, what a place, one not to be missed. Our time in Jordan was nearly over and with an early morning flight we were going to be on a travel day so at least our poor bodies could have a rest on the plane to our next stop.