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JORDAN  - DAY FOUR & FIVE - Petra

Blogs: Day 1-2 JFK to Jordan Via Paris | Day 3 Road to Petra | Day 4-5 Petra | Day 5-6 Desert | Day 7 Dead Sea

 

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Next morning it was time for PETRA!  One of the 7 New Wonders of the World
It is not known precisely when Petra was built, but the city began to prosper from the 1st century BC as a major trading hub.

Here is a pictorial view of Petra as we saw it from beginning to end:

The trail STARTS with a 1.5 mile walk. You can get a carriage for $40.

There are several rock carvings right at the beginning of the walk indicating the hierarchy and history of the society.

These are tombs

The entire area is sandstone which has been eroded by water and wind.

The road gets narrower and the sandstone starts to tower over your head.

This was once a river bed with the rushing water eating through the soft sandstone.

The locals carved out water channels to funnel water to the city on both sides of the road - see below. They also created an elaborate damn system to alleviate flooding.  Quite the masters of hydro engineering!!

And gets even taller and narrower!

Water erosion makes amazing and wonderful colors and shapes.  Photos just don't do it justice.

Note carvings on the water channel.

Then through the crack in the distance we saw what we had all been wafting for - Petra itself!  The structure known as "The Treasury".  This is one, intact, compete carving out of sandstone.

Standing over 120 feet high "The Treasury" is carved out of the sandstone rock and remarkably well preserved.

Walking through the city there were many more carvings most of which were tombs.  Much of the residential areas were destroyed from floods or earthquakes centuries earlier.

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You can take a camel ride for $20 and a donkey ride for $10

These colors are natural and not painted

 

By now having walked 5 km, my feet and hips were super tired so we paid a carriage driver to take us back to the gate! Here's a short video of the ride.

We could go into a very long dissertation about the history of the civilization, the fall, the rise, the conquering....But you can Wikipedia that info.   

Petra was NOT at all what we expected but was soooooo much more than we ever thought possible!

And finally...

 

After a long day exploring we were tired and ordered room service.  They rolled in a complete dining table with place settings, so it was like we were eating in a restaurant (with Wendy in a robe!!)

Pretty neat except they forgot the beers we ordered and brought Wendy the wrong salad.

I guess you can't have everything!

 

The next night we stayed in a Bedouin tent camp.  These guys cooked our dinner underground with a fire on top Bedouin style. After dinner we hung out with the staff at the camp fire - everyone else went to bed. We were talking and laughing exchanging American vs. Jordanian stories.

At about 10 PM The manager of the hotel came out and told Wendy to go to sleep because she was laughing too loud and keeping guests awake.  (He was the only one that complained.....grumpy old man!!)

 

The very next day we were having lunch at a totally different cafe and the choices for sandwiches were cheese, tuna or chicken. When Wendy asked if she could have a tuna sandwich WITH cheese, the restaurant owner yelled at her and said NO! Cheese OR tuna only, no making up your own menu in Jordan!

She's not having good luck with the local bosses!

Lesson learned.  Only in America can you have Land of the FREE menu choice and HOME of getting what you want on the menu - even if it's not on the menu.