Since I feel that one of the main reasons why people really even look at Blogs in the first place is for the pictures, I've decided that I am gonna split my day in Petra into two different posts. That's mostly so that I can throw in the pictures that I would like without it being over the top, while at the same time keeping the posts "shorter" (that being relative to what is considered short for me). As a result you should be able to enjoy Petra just as much as I did.
This first part is going to focus on, you guessed it, the first half of the day which will include, the Treasury, The High Point, and the Monastery; while the second part will focus on the return from the Monastery, the Royal Tombs, The Hike to the lookout over the Treasury, and the end of the day.
Petra started with a long night without sleeping, where I woke up something like 7 or 8 times in the night, before I finally woke up at 5:45, and started to get ready. After that, I went down to the breakfast buffet, and was extremely excited to see American style food, like eggs, sausage, toast, only to be extremely disappointed by how disgusting it all was. For starters the eggs were probably powdered eggs, and when you would insert the serving spoon into them, water would seep up from the eggs, and onto the spoon, and then when you would put it on the plate all that lovely egg water would slop all over the rest of the plate. Lets just say that I stuck to toast and cereal for breakfast both mornings at our hotel.
Following breakfast, we walked down the street to the entrance of Petra and then followed the dirt trail down into the Siq, which leads into the actual city of Petra. Now, at this point if you remember what I said about Canyons in my other post, and how there are two different types of Canyons, then you should be getting excited to know how a Siq, is formed. Unlike a "Wadi" Canyon, which is formed by a river or water running through it over a period of thousands of years. A "Siq" canyon is not formed from a river, but rather from Tectonics, where the canyon is literally split by an Earthquake, or from plate tectonics. As a result, instead of seeing different carvings in the sides and different groove marks along the sides, you will see markings and grooves that match up on the opposite sides.
Along the way down through the Siq that leads into Petra, you will see an irrigation canal, that has been there since the time of the Nabateans, whom are the ones who built Petra. After about 20 mins of walking, since it really isn't much of a hike, seeing as how the road is paved, part of it anciently will cobble stones and part is newer, you finally reach what is probably the most famous view of the Petra, which is the one that everyone knows from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It was at about this point that our program leader Dil Parkinson, renowned Arabic Linguist, translator of the Book of Mormon into Arabic, began to sing the theme song to Indiana Jones. It was rather comical to see and hear. Once you step through into the larger opening
which houses the Treasury, you are almost immediately bombarded by the Bedouin people who are selling their merchandise. "Necklace 1 JD, Necklace 1 JD!" You hear about 20 people yelling that all at the same time, and when you go up and try to buy a necklace, you find out that the nice ones they have, that people would actually want to buy are much much more. However, if you are stubborn enough, and persistent enough, you can bargain almost everything down to much, much, cheaper. Aside from the merchants walking around holding necklaces from finger tip to elbow, there is also one guy right in front of the Treasury with his camels. I am pretty sure that he is the only one allowed in that spot, and that he has the best idea, because he charges 3JD to sit on the camel, have it stand up, and then walk in a circle, and sit back down, while someone takes pictured of the rider. Essentially, if you want a picture on a Camel in Petra, then you go to him. Also, I am pretty sure that he is the most famous Bedouin in the area, since every picture of the treasury that I have seen since and before has the same guy in it.
Following the bombardment of merchants, and cheap little gimmicks, and once you are able to get past the throng of people, and have finally gotten your photo taken in front of the treasury, then you get to enter into the rest of the area of Petra. Off to the left of the Treasury, are a set of stairs that at one point in time used to lead up to an awesome lookout, looking down over the treasury; however, that has long been closed to the public, forcing everyone to follow the road down and to the right, where you pass by numerous open tombs and rooms carved right into the walls of the canyon. After a short walk you come to the next trail head, and group of merchants.
From this trail head you can hike up to the "high point" which is the old sacrificial point for the Nabateans. Leading up to the lookouts and the alter, you climb an innumerable amount of stairs, and you pass a new set of merchants, this time telling you "Its free to look! Would you like to buy something?" At the top of the carved out stairs, and switchbacks, you reach the first lookout over the valley. Which helps give
a good perspective of how large the area really is. From, this lookout you continue past a few more merchants, and a few more donkeys for that matter, and continue up yet another set of stairs, to the alter, and what appeared to be either: a) a large baptismal font or b) a large pool for blood, carved down into the top of the mountain, and which went down a good 6 feet or so from the top of the hole. Again from here, you could see all across the valley and down into the different parts of Petra.
Once you return from your ascension to the "High Place" and make your way past all the vendors again, then you get to continue down the path past hundreds more tombs, a few bathrooms, tons more merchants, all saying the same thing, except that this time they all yell out, "Buy a gift for your wife or girl friend, they will love you more. Or better yet, buy one for both of them" and then they chuckle to themselves about how funny they were and how clever they all are. One thing to be said about the merchants, is that they are really good at saying their needed phrases in about 20 different languages. I talked with one little merchant boy and asked him how many languages he spoke. He explained that he spoke English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, and then proceeded to ask me what I can only assume was the same thing in each of the different languages. When he reached Spanish, I thought I would test him a little, and started talking about something completely different. He had no idea what I was saying. But I do have to give him props for at least knowing how to say something other than "Hi" in each of those languages. That's more than I can say for myself. On top of that, he was able to recognize the different languages when he heard them, making it so that he could efficiently annoy all of the tourists in the area.
At the end of the long canyon that is Petra, you reach another trail head that leads up to the Monastery. Again, here there are "So many" stairs, as the Arabs would put it, that I tried to count how many there were as I walked up and after about 150 I got bored, and decided I would trust my guide book which said that there are about 800 stairs all together leading up to the monastery. Let me tell you, I believe it. By about the 400th stair or so, I really started feeling just how fat I am, and how out of shape I am, when it comes to stairs. Surprisingly enough if it isn't a stair I don't have much trouble, but those stairs, were just brutal. I thought the ones leading up to campus were bad, but I have to say the stairs leading to the Monastery are about 100 times worse. Again as with just about every single place in the area, there are merchants that line the trail, road going up to the Monastery, and like every other sector of Petra, they have their own little niche on annoying sayings. Along this road all the merchants bombard you with "Its happy hour right now. This hour is Happy Hour." When asked what it meant they all shrugged and said they had no idea what it actually meant, which was true from the way they used. An hour later when I walked back down the trail they were still using it like there was no tomorrow.
Finally, after about the 800th stair or so, I finally made it to the Monastery and was just blown away by how massive it truly is. It is probably about twice the size of the Treasury, and conveniently located just across from the Monastery is a drinks and food stand, along with another...that's right you guessed it Merchant stand selling all sorts of merchandise, from silver platters priced in the $2,000 JD to all sorts of other things. Although cool, most of the stuff isn't worth what the merchants wanted for it. Also if you were to ask me, the only thing that was really worth while were the padded benches which faced the Monastery, and gave a spectacular view of the building. I'm pretty sure I spent a good hour or so just sitting there staring at people and the monastery. It made for a great little snack area, and rest stop, until another Merchant told me that if my friends and I wanted to keep sitting there we had to order something, so on of them bought a water, and we sat there for another 45 mins.
This first part is going to focus on, you guessed it, the first half of the day which will include, the Treasury, The High Point, and the Monastery; while the second part will focus on the return from the Monastery, the Royal Tombs, The Hike to the lookout over the Treasury, and the end of the day.
Petra started with a long night without sleeping, where I woke up something like 7 or 8 times in the night, before I finally woke up at 5:45, and started to get ready. After that, I went down to the breakfast buffet, and was extremely excited to see American style food, like eggs, sausage, toast, only to be extremely disappointed by how disgusting it all was. For starters the eggs were probably powdered eggs, and when you would insert the serving spoon into them, water would seep up from the eggs, and onto the spoon, and then when you would put it on the plate all that lovely egg water would slop all over the rest of the plate. Lets just say that I stuck to toast and cereal for breakfast both mornings at our hotel.
Following breakfast, we walked down the street to the entrance of Petra and then followed the dirt trail down into the Siq, which leads into the actual city of Petra. Now, at this point if you remember what I said about Canyons in my other post, and how there are two different types of Canyons, then you should be getting excited to know how a Siq, is formed. Unlike a "Wadi" Canyon, which is formed by a river or water running through it over a period of thousands of years. A "Siq" canyon is not formed from a river, but rather from Tectonics, where the canyon is literally split by an Earthquake, or from plate tectonics. As a result, instead of seeing different carvings in the sides and different groove marks along the sides, you will see markings and grooves that match up on the opposite sides. |
| The Treasury - Unfortunately there are 2 |
which houses the Treasury, you are almost immediately bombarded by the Bedouin people who are selling their merchandise. "Necklace 1 JD, Necklace 1 JD!" You hear about 20 people yelling that all at the same time, and when you go up and try to buy a necklace, you find out that the nice ones they have, that people would actually want to buy are much much more. However, if you are stubborn enough, and persistent enough, you can bargain almost everything down to much, much, cheaper. Aside from the merchants walking around holding necklaces from finger tip to elbow, there is also one guy right in front of the Treasury with his camels. I am pretty sure that he is the only one allowed in that spot, and that he has the best idea, because he charges 3JD to sit on the camel, have it stand up, and then walk in a circle, and sit back down, while someone takes pictured of the rider. Essentially, if you want a picture on a Camel in Petra, then you go to him. Also, I am pretty sure that he is the most famous Bedouin in the area, since every picture of the treasury that I have seen since and before has the same guy in it.
Following the bombardment of merchants, and cheap little gimmicks, and once you are able to get past the throng of people, and have finally gotten your photo taken in front of the treasury, then you get to enter into the rest of the area of Petra. Off to the left of the Treasury, are a set of stairs that at one point in time used to lead up to an awesome lookout, looking down over the treasury; however, that has long been closed to the public, forcing everyone to follow the road down and to the right, where you pass by numerous open tombs and rooms carved right into the walls of the canyon. After a short walk you come to the next trail head, and group of merchants.
From this trail head you can hike up to the "high point" which is the old sacrificial point for the Nabateans. Leading up to the lookouts and the alter, you climb an innumerable amount of stairs, and you pass a new set of merchants, this time telling you "Its free to look! Would you like to buy something?" At the top of the carved out stairs, and switchbacks, you reach the first lookout over the valley. Which helps give
a good perspective of how large the area really is. From, this lookout you continue past a few more merchants, and a few more donkeys for that matter, and continue up yet another set of stairs, to the alter, and what appeared to be either: a) a large baptismal font or b) a large pool for blood, carved down into the top of the mountain, and which went down a good 6 feet or so from the top of the hole. Again from here, you could see all across the valley and down into the different parts of Petra. 
Once you return from your ascension to the "High Place" and make your way past all the vendors again, then you get to continue down the path past hundreds more tombs, a few bathrooms, tons more merchants, all saying the same thing, except that this time they all yell out, "Buy a gift for your wife or girl friend, they will love you more. Or better yet, buy one for both of them" and then they chuckle to themselves about how funny they were and how clever they all are. One thing to be said about the merchants, is that they are really good at saying their needed phrases in about 20 different languages. I talked with one little merchant boy and asked him how many languages he spoke. He explained that he spoke English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, and then proceeded to ask me what I can only assume was the same thing in each of the different languages. When he reached Spanish, I thought I would test him a little, and started talking about something completely different. He had no idea what I was saying. But I do have to give him props for at least knowing how to say something other than "Hi" in each of those languages. That's more than I can say for myself. On top of that, he was able to recognize the different languages when he heard them, making it so that he could efficiently annoy all of the tourists in the area.
At the end of the long canyon that is Petra, you reach another trail head that leads up to the Monastery. Again, here there are "So many" stairs, as the Arabs would put it, that I tried to count how many there were as I walked up and after about 150 I got bored, and decided I would trust my guide book which said that there are about 800 stairs all together leading up to the monastery. Let me tell you, I believe it. By about the 400th stair or so, I really started feeling just how fat I am, and how out of shape I am, when it comes to stairs. Surprisingly enough if it isn't a stair I don't have much trouble, but those stairs, were just brutal. I thought the ones leading up to campus were bad, but I have to say the stairs leading to the Monastery are about 100 times worse. Again as with just about every single place in the area, there are merchants that line the trail, road going up to the Monastery, and like every other sector of Petra, they have their own little niche on annoying sayings. Along this road all the merchants bombard you with "Its happy hour right now. This hour is Happy Hour." When asked what it meant they all shrugged and said they had no idea what it actually meant, which was true from the way they used. An hour later when I walked back down the trail they were still using it like there was no tomorrow.
Finally, after about the 800th stair or so, I finally made it to the Monastery and was just blown away by how massive it truly is. It is probably about twice the size of the Treasury, and conveniently located just across from the Monastery is a drinks and food stand, along with another...that's right you guessed it Merchant stand selling all sorts of merchandise, from silver platters priced in the $2,000 JD to all sorts of other things. Although cool, most of the stuff isn't worth what the merchants wanted for it. Also if you were to ask me, the only thing that was really worth while were the padded benches which faced the Monastery, and gave a spectacular view of the building. I'm pretty sure I spent a good hour or so just sitting there staring at people and the monastery. It made for a great little snack area, and rest stop, until another Merchant told me that if my friends and I wanted to keep sitting there we had to order something, so on of them bought a water, and we sat there for another 45 mins.
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