Day 19: Petra
Trip Start
May 14, 2008
1
21
42
Trip End
Jun 17, 2008
Loading Map
Wadi Musa,
Jordan
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
We go to breakfast, which is a large plentiful quality buffet of both American and Jordanian style foods. They'll also cook eggs any style. At 8:30 AM, our driver John meets Bob and Barbara and us and is taking us to the tour office to meet our guide. Since we have been grouped together last night and for this morning's taxi, we discuss if we will have private guides as has been pre-arranged, or whether we will be grouped together. To our pleasant relief, there are two guides - one for each couple.
Mahmud, our guide starts out in the Visitor's Center, showing us an aerial view of Petra taken 37 years ago (the magical number of our anniversary!). At that time, there was no modern town of Petra or a tourist infrastructure. It seems very similar to Eilat from that perspective. There is plenty of information about Petra on the internet and guidebooks, so we'll only talk about our personal reactions and experiences today and offer some tips that others may find helpful.
As we begin our stroll from the Visitor's Center, Mahmud tells us that he is a Bedouin born in the old city of Petra and had not been out of Petra until he was six years old.
Nabatean soldiers
His uncle who doesn't have land but is educated, tried to convince his father that his kids should be educated. Mahmud's father said that the children should get their education with the goats in the desert. Finally, his father agreed to have one child educated and Mahmud was chosen. Mahmud said he was the first in his clan to be educated and that he was trained as an electronic engineer in Manchester, England. His story doesn't quite hang together, because Mahmud said that his uncle was educated, so he wasn't the first in his clan - or maybe we didn't understand. Who knows if this story is true? We checked with Bob and Barbara later and their tour guide was also born in the old city of Petra. True or not, it sounds believable. It seems that every guide was brought up living in Petra.As we proceed Mahmud tells us a little about his family. He has a 17 year old daughter. She wears short skirts and tells him that he does not understand that times are changing. He is unsure how to handle her when she talks back to him. This behavior is unheard of. Apparently his daughter is very attractive and looks mature. Someone called his wife to tell her that he was seen with another woman. It turned out that he was driving his daughter to school.
Just a short distance from the Visitor's Center, we get a sense of what we did not see last night. It is as if we have not been here before! Last night we looked down at our feet to find our way, today we look up at the tall walls of the sculptural passageway we are entering.
In the Siq leading into Old Petra
Last night it was quiet as people talked in hushed tones, today we hear the donkeys naying, young boys and men asking us if we want a donkey, camel or carriage ride and tour guides giving their spiel to their groups. I get this idea that I want to add a digital audio recorder to my travel gear so I can capture the sounds as well as the visual images of places like this. Oh to have had one last night with the Bedouin singer and flutist! Oh to hear the donkeys and the sounds of the horses and carriages clomping sounds through the canyon! The walk initially is quite wide with interesting shapes of red stone buildings and then it becomes more like a narrow canyon, called the siq. People are stopping in the middle of the path to take photos. As we approach the end of the siq, we come to the place where the classic photo of Petra is taken. We try to get our own and need to play with our camera settings because the lighting is so challenging. We end up finding that bracketing on high speed continuous mode is the way to go. This enables us to get multiple exposures and since they are taken in quick succession we can use Photoshop to merge and take parts of each if needed. We've posted some of the photos directly as they came from the camera; the Photoshoping will be done when these journals are all caught up! Part of what makes Petra interesting is how the light changes as you move through the siq; we imagine that as the day progresses, the red rock will take on different looks and feelings.
The Treasury building from the Siq
We're intrigued.We pass through another turn in the siq, and the Treasury building is right there in front of us! It's right out of Indiana Jones and my imagination is starting to take over. I know we saw it last night, but here it is in full daylight, the real thing! It now looks much larger, more commanding. The building is so evocative of a very old civilization, that the Nabatean soldiers at the front entrance give a glimpse into how the people looked at the time. I walk up to the Nabatean soldier and ask Harvey to take my picture. While Harvey is adjusting the camera, the soldier whispers something in my ear and as I am trying to figure out what he could possibly be saying, I recognize the word "baksheesh". After Harvey gets the photo, I tell him what the soldier whispered and he decides to give him a $1. The guard says "not enough" in English. We just throw up our hands and walk away!
We continue on with Mahmud, walking through the outer siq. This area is filled with facades, caves, and structures from many time periods, including Nabatean, and Roman. There are also sand artists, trinket, water, and tea sellers. There is also the important toilet facility. If you take advantage of this facility, be sure to look up at the ceiling in which the soft sandstone displays some wild patterns.
Mahmud points out what turns out to be my favorite building, of which there really isn't much left, but I like the function it was used for. It is a religious building in which anyone of any faith could worship.
Treasury Building
Maybe then there was religious tolerance that we could learn from today. Harvey comments that one building could be used by three faiths: Friday it could be a mosque, on Saturday it could be a synagogue, and Sunday it could be a church. These are possibilities that will probably never become a reality.Mahmud takes us over to a restaurant for a buffet lunch and gets our vouchers, since it is covered with our Desert Eco Tour package. Lunch is a buffet & includes salads, chicken, eggplant, lamb, fruits and cakes. We only pay for our drinks. It is actually quite good. We run into Barbara and Bob and join them for lunch. They are a very interesting couple. Bob is the head of a department in a medical school in Colorado. They keep mentioning their friends who are the head of this and the head of that. I ask if they know any normal people and Bob responds that at his age everyone is the head of something.
Before leaving us, Mahmud made some suggestions of where we might walk in the afternoon. The three best preserved sites, in this order are: the monastery, the palace, the treasury. There are 112 steps to get to the monastery or we can take a donkey ride, but in the mid-day hot sun, we decide that we'll explore the palace. We will see the treasury again on our way back out. Actually, the palace looks best from a distance. When we get close, it is just so huge you can only see small parts and walk into rooms. The interior of the rooms has the beautiful sandstone patterns.
While visiting the other sites we run into a family from Miami.
View from the Treasury
It is not hard to figure this out because a young man had on a Miami Hurricanes shirt and hat. The family has three generations traveling together, two of which have more than enough energy to make up for the older folks. The younger folks are literally running from cave to cave. I think this is the first day of a very long trip. They are off to Istanbul in a few days. I wonder if they will still be running from place to place after a month of touring.On our way back, I suddenly find myself needing a bathroom. The first available that we come upon is what looks like a portable unit like what we have in the U.S., but this one is immaculately clean with a flushing toilet and a sink with running water. A woman is sitting nearby and Harvey gives her $1. Her face lights up, so we're not sure if she is the one that is keeping it so clean, but...hey, it's OK.
Before we leave the discussion of Petra, we would like to make some suggestions:
· Do the Petra by Candlelight Tour the night before you visit by day if it fits into your itinerary. Currently it is offered on Monday and Thursday evenings.
· Get an early start so that you can be there in the cooler part of the day and perhaps take in the monastery, and see the light change on the red rock.
· Make sure you drink plenty of water. Carry some with you in a backpack so you can be sipping regularly.
· American dollars are accepted. Being in Jordan for such a short time, we were happy not to have to get local currency.
A stone wall in a Petra building
Bring $1, $5, $10 and $20 U.S. currency. They are needed for tips and drinks, even if you are on a pre-paid package.We walk back through the siq and stop at the tour office to get our taxi back to Taybet Zaman and review the arrangements for the next day. They confirm that Wadi Rum is now guided only by Bedouin from Wadi Rum. We affirm that the Jordanian guides and people we have met made us feel comfortable and seemed friendly. The people at the tour office seem like really nice people.
Returning to the hotel at around 4 PM, we now have the time to enjoy the property and we are really looking forward to it! Our new room is delightful and we make reservations for another Turkish Bath. Before, we go to the beautifully situated swimming pool and meet the other couple with Desert Eco tours. We're all chatting about Petra and relaxing before we all head out to the hammer. Then a short rest before a delicious buffet dinner. Something triggers a memory for Harvey about the end of the book, "The Journeyer" in which a person's last dying words were "If only I had..." He comments that he doesn't want to feel that way when he dies. Visiting an ancient place like Petra makes you pause to think about how short our lives are and how we want to live.
This is our last night at the Taybet Zaman Hotel, so I'll make some comments about our stay. The Taybet Zaman is about 5 miles from Petra. It is a unique property in that it was once a Bedouin village and has now been converted into a hotel, operated by Sofitel. As we have learned, each room we had was spacious and different. They have stone walls and are decorated with throw rugs and wall hangings of the Bedouin. The restaurant is really good. And the Turkish Bath/Hammer is an experience! The service is excellent throughout the facility. To get a sense of place, particularly after visiting Petra, stay here. It's a taxi ride to Petra, but that's the only drawback. To get a feel for the charm of Taybet Zaman, take a look at our photos.
Click here for today's photos!
