Ancient Capital of Edom

My friends who had visited Jordan before I did gave me lots of suggestions for tourist activities. Of all of the ideas, two of those were listed under the "I Don't Care if I Don't Do Anything Else" to-do list: Petra and the Dead Sea. They lived up to their expectations. This blog post will, naturally, be dedicated to Petra...or according the Old Testament, the ancient capital of Edom (2 Kings 14:7, Isaiah 16:1, Judges 1:36...).

You may also know about the place thanks to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade--in my opinion the best of the Indiana Jones films. (Of course this may be due to the fact that when I saw it for the first time I had a teensy little teenaged crush on River Phoenix. Or that there are scenes in Venice.)

I posted a trailer that isn't working for some reason, but that's okay because it didn't exactly show you what I am talking about. And then you might not want to read the rest of my travelogue. That has pictures. I took about a kajillion billion pictures, but it is my goal to show you the best of mine.

Petra is an all-day event, and if you have the time there is enough to see for two days. We left Amman early in morning, and took a two-hour bus to the city. It is certainly a tourist attraction, but the place is so huge that the throngs do not derail the experience. After purchasing tickets, and a cool Arabic-type headscarf (which, sadly, was Made in China), we were on our way.

For the first leg of the journey visitors can choose to walk, take a carriage, or ride a horse--included in the price of the ticket (!). Trish and I, wanting the full experience, chose to go horseback. Along the way we passed the Djin Blocks, the Obelisk Tomb, and the ancient man-made cave dwellings that are littered throughout the site. Since my horse guide thought the best way to collect a lot of tips was to make the horse run, and thus taking on more tourists. So along the way, I took pictures of somethings but they were blurry. It's a good thing that we got to pass by that way (on foot) to leave.

The horses dropped us off at the entrance of the Bab al-Siq area--narrow, tall, and utterly gorgeous cliffs. Along the way we saw the artistry of the natural rock layers, ancient carvings, and fig trees growing out of the fissures in the rocks.

It was hard to avoid looking up, and by the time we reached the most famous monument in Petra my neck was pretty sore. It was entirely worth it. Trish and I were walking near a tour group, and as we approached the end of the canyon trail the guide played an all-too-familiar movie theme song. (I'm pretty sure you know which one I mean.)

The Treasury--the immense building you see in the above pictures--is truly breathtaking and awe-inspiring. Trish and I had to rest and take it all in while enjoying a celebratory Silver Bullet Diet Coke. We had to get our energy up for the rest of the trip.

Can you believe I still have more to share?

When faced with the option "Why Not?" sometimes the question is also the best response--especially when faced with the offer to take a donkey ride to the top of the cliffs to the Monastery. At first, I thought "tourist trap," but it was So.Much.Fun, and the only way we could get up to the Monastery and back without missing our bus.

I actually rode a mule probably because my bedouin guide thought I was too tall for a donkey.

On our way we passed more Nabatean marvels: the Royal Tombs, an arena, and a temple, all being excavated by a fine team from Brown University. We took a lot of pictures, and Trish took thousands--well, so much so that her bedouin started to call her "The Japanese."

For reasons of safety (trust me) I didn't take too many pictures on the way to the top. It was all I could do to hang on to my poor, poor mule. Really, donkeys and mules have the saddest faces. I kind of wanted to take one home with me so I could spend my life trying to make it happy. But then, what would I do with a donkey--even a happy one?

After a very long time hanging on for dear life, and not looking over the side of the cliff, we arrived at the Monastary. Less ornate, but the edifice is just as amazing as the Treasury.

Petra is not just an archeological masterpiece. People, bedouins actually, live there. Many families live in the caves that were carved out centuries ago. In fact, several years ago a New Zealand lady was wooed by a bedouin, and ended up marrying him. They live in Petra to this day. And she wrote a book that I need to read. This has, of course, inspired many bedouin lads to aspire to meeting a lovely (blond) Westerner and luring her into his tent/cave. Trish and I were even invited to "make party" with our two guides.

How could we resist those two eye-lined lads? Easy. It's called running water.

Believe it or not, descending the mountainside was just a hair scarier than ascending. I am surprised that I can't remember the name of my mule, because I would nervously say it coupled with a "shway, shway" (easy, easy) as she gingerly climbed down the worn, carved staircase.

My mantra was: "Hold tight, trust the mule, and don't look down." Isn't that a good mantra for life in general?

Miraculously Trish and I survived, and we happily celebrated once again with another Silver Bullet Diet Coke, and 7-Up's H2Oh. And without our two bedouin guides.

I had to remove my friend's pictures--for some reason they weren't showing up. It's really a crying shame.