Jordan

We decided we needed a little break from Egypt. Anyone who has ever been to Egypt will know what we mean. It is a bit taxing. Where to go? Sudan looked a little hot and Libya is a difficult border to get across. We decided on Jordan. No, Egypt does not technically touch Jordan, you have to take a boat across the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea or cut across Israel, but we figured we would go overland and get a beer along the way.

Jordan is the site of the famous lost city of Petra. It consists of buildings hewn directly from the Technicolor cliff faces. Picture the area around Moab but with incredible ancient tombs and temples carved into the rock itself at every turn. While this city was once the world famous capital of the Nabataeans, trade routes shift and civilizations wax and wane. The city was lost to the west for over a millennium. It was known to the local Bedouins but they kept its existence to themselves, fearing an influx of foreigners if it was ever discovered. A ludicrous idea…

“The Middle East in August?” you say. But of course. We went fully expecting it to be sweltering and, in fairness, at midday it was hot but being up in the hills it was surprisingly comfortable the rest of the time. Best sleeping temperatures either of us had experienced in years. The country itself is great, with charming, funny people (“Mister, you want a taxi?” they ask while gesturing to their donkey) and facilities to deal with visitors. Very relaxing.


When we thought of Petra we thought of the Treasury building at the end of the slot canyon called the Siq, which is where Indiana Jones retrieved the Holy Grail (note: Sam and Mark in each picture). We were as surprised and thrilled with the sudden sight as Indy. The other building many think of is called the Monastery. What most people (read: Sam and Mark) don’t realize is that these two buildings make the extreme ends of the site and that there is a whole city in between. Petra is a great workout. To get down the Siq, across the city and then up to the Monastery on top of a mountain on the other side is a pretty good day if you throw in some detours along the way, which is nearly impossible to resist with so much cool stuff everywhere.

(Above The Monastery - notice the people at its door)

This place is not exactly up to code for accessibility. Some of the tombs (which are what the majority of the carved building are) are up some pretty challenging paths but the payoff is great. There is a good deal of up and down here. We climbed up to a ruined crusader castle which was built on a mountain overlooking the whole town (and on some tombs for that matter) and took in a stunning 360 degree view of the site. What we realized was that it would take a lifetime in that area to see all the stuff that was built there in antiquity. The structures trailed off up every canyon and wash as far as the eye could see. There are more than 800 registered sites there. Those are the registered ones.

(Crusader Castle)

These guys were audacious in their monument building, too. While not constructing obelisks the size of the Egyptians, they still impressed. The Egyptians built huge obelisks by carving out stones and erecting them, the Nabataeans simply leveled off the whole mountaintop 18 feet, leaving behind only the obelisk shapes. What!?!? The chambers in these monuments were perfectly cut and colossal, too. The fact that there were no columns to support them had a visual effect that was almost indescribable, like the inside of a cathedral held up by magic.

At one point we kind of stumbled upon a stairway (we had been told about something like it but had no idea if we were in the right place) that was straight out of Lord of the Rings. Up, up, up the side of the mountain it went until a little carved tomb. The path seemed to end there (and would have been a fantastic hike alone with the bird’s eye views of the amphitheatre hundreds of feet below) but we pushed on and found it continued further, hidden from view at the top. This path continued through the upper valley (with some sort of sketchy exposed faces at the end) until we came upon an overlook of the treasury that simply took our breath away. It was stunning. Stuff like that deserves to be seen by the masses, although we were happy for the Jordanian lack of signage, since we had it to ourselves.

Each day after hiking in Petra we were pretty wiped out. The dueling mosques of Jordan sometimes reduced our sleeping time but we did not mind. We were usually looking out the window anyway, since Jordan gets top honors for sunrises and sunsets.

(Pondering the mysteries of Petra)