Petra Diamond Hotel Wadi Musa

Petra is one of the most awesome ancient cities I have ever visited. I've seen the ruins of Mayan and Incan ruins in Mexico, the Pyramids and ancient cities of Egypt and visited so many castles and ruins throughout Europe that I have lost count. Petra easily stands head and shoulders above them all.

The entrance to the city is a two kilometre walk, mostly ...

... was looking at the top Wayne said "look over there" and in the opening before the next lot of steps up was a clearing and carved into the cliff face beside me was The Monastery. This was similar to the Treasury but in fact taller and I think more spectacular as it was up so high and in a clearing you could stand way back and view from across the clearing before going up the last 150m up to where you can see out over the valley and we were told across to Syria. The sun was ...

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Petra was a Nabothian stronghold in the 1st Century AD and they used Petra for buerials and all kinds of rituals. It is always 35oC+ is a 2km walk down from Wadi Musa (the village I stay in) followed by a 3km walk through the Siq (a tunnel cut into the mountainside which is very impressive) After the Siq the complex opens up and it is huge. To put it into context I spent 3 days here and scratched the surface - it is truly remarcable.


At 5am Nathan ...

... the entrance. Besides the sheer scope and size of this edifice, the striking thing is that it was created in the first century AD and is still in its full glory today. Ironically, scholars are still uncertain of why it was built, although it is commonly believed to be the tomb of a popular king of the time, and a place of rituals. However, beyond the Treasury, there is much, much more to the Petra site, including hundred of carved tombs dating back to the same time, a huge ...

... and the Last Crusade. There was something really awesome about watching it in Petra and just thinking that we were down there where they filmed it only a couple of hours ago. Anyways after dinner we all hit the hay as tomorrow we had a big big walk ahead of us.

Well we woke up just before breakfast finished so quickly chucked on some clothes and headed up to breaky. After breakfast we grab our day packs fill with litres and litres of water and headed into the ancient Petra. We ...

Today, before we went into Petra we decided to peek into the Brooke Foundation's Princess Alia Working animal clinic. The clinic is funded by the Brooke Foundation for working animals (http://www.thebrooke.org/) and this is one of several clinics in poor communities throughout the world. We were treated to a private tour of the facilities by its Director; we sat in on a workshop for horse/donkey owners on treating cholic and saw a horse get worked on ...

... le peu d'effet que l'oeuvre des Nabathéens, cette civilisation un peu batarde dont le mélange des influences (Syrienne, Arabe, Greco-romaine) a pourtant produit de jolies choses, eut sur ma personne. Pour m'exprimer plus simplement : j'ai traversé la ville antique comme j'avais parcouru les allées de l'immense complexe cultuel, avec un certain plaisir à défaut de ...