17-Sep
Not a too early departure today, we left Wadi Rum around 9, the drive to Petra was around 2 1/2 hours with a few it stops along the way. The roads are good, but like in Egypt, I don’t think anyone is adhering to any sort of traffic rule. The view from the bus was much the same, desert, granite or sandstone mountains and here and there a few scattered camels. We dropped our luggage of at our hotel and the bus took us down into the valley. Visiting Petra was the main reason I booked this trip so I was very excited to get going.
Petra is a famous archaeological site in Jordan’s southwestern desert. Dating to around 300 B.C., it was the capital of the Nabatean Kingdom. Accessed via a narrow canyon called Al Siq, it contains tombs and temples carved into pink sandstone cliffs, earning its nickname, the “Rose City.” Perhaps its most famous structure is 45m-high Al Khazneh, a temple with an ornate, Greek-style facade, and known as The Treasury.
When we walked through the canyon we noticed the man made terracotta pipes and stone panels which were used to transport and filter the water from Wadi Musa into Petra. The original dams that were used to prevent flooding from the pipes are still in place at the beginning of the canyon. Al Siq Canyon is also adorned with a number of religious sculptures and we passed a tomb and a single standing fig tree. The canyon then continues to wind beneath the cliffs until it reaches the opening at The Treasury.
After doing roughly 18.000 steps in the middle of the day, with an average temperature of 32 degrees, it was nice to walk through the (air conditioned) museum that is attached to the site. However, after visiting the museums in Cairo is it hard to be impressed 😉 Not to mention that we were reprimanded by a security guard, we were to loud. A few of us were just wondering why, from all the male statues, their penises were cut off. And yes we had a bit of a (loud) chuckle about that 😂
We got back to our hotel and I went out for a bit of exploring in the area, found a nice rooftop bar and enjoyed a well deserved beer. On my way back I met a few local kids playing football who loved to practice their English with me 😁
