Israel/Jordan Day 14: Petra... Mouth open, staring in awe.

This was a day I'd been looking forward to for years.  It reminded me of our three day tour of Cambodia in 1997 with Lap Tek... he hid Angkor Wat from us for the first two days, finally revealing the formerly jungle covered temple in all its glory on the morning of the third day.  Petra is something right out of, well, Indiana Jones.  

The drive from Wadi Rum was pretty cool... gradually rolling up into mountains, stopping at a tourist shop for great distant views of the whole area.

Petra was our next stop!  The park ground are located at the edge of a medium sized city called Wadi Musa that sits perched on the edge of a curving rock valley.  Ahmed took care of the tickets and helped us get night tickets for a return trip later tonight.  After passing the little courtyard full of tourist shops (a few Indiana Jones cutouts and plenty of opportunities to buy a fedora and whip!), we began the walk down to the main feature of Petra - the Treasury.

There isn't tons known about Petra, but it's pretty clear that it was a stopover area along the silk road, created by a nomadic people called Nabataeans,  There was lots of evidence of viaducts and water capture (much needed for travellers), boarding areas, a small Romanesque theater and carvings seemingly paying tribute to various cultures who would use the roadway.

The "treasury" is just one of many sandstone carvings in the entire area, but is is the only one that was done in such a way that it avoided the effects of sun, wind and rain, so it stands out as an amazing human accomplishment that has, for the most part, lasted the test of time.  Built over 2000 years ago, and rediscovered in 1812, it's thought to be a mausoleum.  Tourists can't go inside the structure, and actually, there's not much to it.  

Winding down the narrowing road carved over millennia by storm water, the final reveal of the treasury completely took my breath away.  When we got to the opening that revealed the much-bigger-than-I-thought facade, I could only stand there, staring at it, for maybe ten minutes.  What an amazing thing - I will never forget that feeling.

Wow.

We continued to explore the area.  Further down the way station road, we would divert off to either side from time to time, exploring into caves and climbing rock paths taking us to lookouts.  You could easily spend a day exploring around the area.

When we ran out of gas, it was time for the slow, hot walk up, up and up to the park entrance.  Even though we chuckled at people taking golf carts or donkeys back up, for the older folks, it wouldn't be a bad idea.

So amazing!

Alex had found our hotel, the Little Petra Bedouin Camp, for the night.  It was the coolest setup - built into a small valley surrounded by moon rocks that lit up at night, the place reminded Beth and I of one of the places we would have stayed when we were backpacking across Asia.  It had a backpacker vibe, and the two brothers who ran it were young and entrepreneurial.  There was some drama between Mohammed and Ahmed when we arrived, but we later learned (after interrogating them separately, lol) that they both suspected the other of some kind of scam or kickback... but, all good.

We showered and then chilled out in the large, open air common room, where we could connect to wifi, enjoy unlimited sweet tea and Alex got back into hookah!  Dinner was great and after a little light show showing off the camp in all its glory, Mohammed's quieter brother picked us up and drove us back to Petra for the evening show.

The reviews of the "show" for the Petra nighttime gig were pretty mixed, but we were really just going to see the wonder one last time in a different light.  When we first went to the Taj Mahal, we were told you had to see it at sunrise, mid day, and sunset, and it turned out they weren't wrong (we managed two of them the first time!).  Petra at night was mystical - such a cool experience, and the walk down and up was much nicer at night.