A Petra-fying Experience

Today I had arranged for a private taxi to take me down to Petra from Amman. The journey is a good 3 hours long, so I decided to be up nice and early once more to maximise the day I had there. The journey to Petra is fairly uninspiring, as all you see for miles around you is desert (the Jordanian desert) with the occasional town/herd of camels thrown in. My driver was Samir, who could not speak great English, but seemed friendly enough (which is always good as I have to spend 6 hours cooped up with him).As we started getting near to Petra, the landscape started to change, and it was much more impressive, with miles of flat desert being replaced with mountains.

Finally we arrived, and I managed to get a lovely view of the town of Petra as we approached. There are two options for getting down to the ruins; you can walk, or you can take a horse/camel or donkey ride. I decided to walk down, as it would enable me to stop and take photos along the way.The ruins of Petra are in a siq. This is a canyon that has been created due to seismic shifts in the tectonic plates (earthquakes), the force of which ripped the stones in two. This has created a truly amazing path down to the ancient city, and I was snapping away furiously at everything along the way. The enclosed nature of the siqs does mean though that caution needs to be exercised if it looks like it is prone to rain there (which from my experience of the middle east can't be that often) as some of them can be prone to flash flooding because they are so narrow.

The journey down the siq was surprisingly long, I kept thinking we must be at the city by now, whenever i saw a bend in the path, thinking it would open up and reveal the city, but no, it just continued on and on. Along the way I met an Australian girl, Pippy, who was with an unofficial "guide", and we ended up walking around together. Single women touring in the middle east attract far more attention than single men, and i think she acquired Omar as a result of this attention. If I am honest, he seemed a bit put out that I was tagging along with them, preferring to have Pippy all to himself, and kept trying to get rid of me in subtle little ways, which was actually quite amusing.

A view looking back up the siq at some lazies using a horse!!

After what seemed like an interminably long walk, I rounded a corner and got a glimpse of the Treasury peeking back at me from the siq. This really was one of those hair standing on the back of your neck moments, and I stared in awe at the tiny sliver I could see from the siq. Ever since I was a young lad (many moons ago now) I remember seeing a picture of this place and wanting to go and visit it and here I was, all these years later, looking at it with my own eyes.

The first glimpse of the treasury from the siq. Hairs
were tingling at the back of my neck at this sight.....

A zoomed in view, trying to cut out the masses......

The money shot, the Treasury in all its glory!! Do you
notice the red tinge from the way that the sun hits it?

The treasury is absolutely gorgeous, it is an amazing sculptural feat by the Nabataeans (which is the name for the Bedouin tribes). The outer casing of the treasury is spectacular, but the inside of it is actually very bland, there is one room that is just square and unadorned in the same way. One thing that really struck me about the ancient city of Petra was that one day was never going to be enough time to visit everything in the area. There is a monastary which is about a 5km walk into the mountains, which would have been nice to see, but I only had 6 hours of visiting time, and I needed to cram in as much as possible.

We walked around the city, taking pictures of the scenic views as much as the buildings within, marvelling at the wonderful swirlling colours of the rock, and the tombs chiselled out of them. There is a courthouse (so Omar told us) up one of the mountainsides, so it was a pretty light trek up, and had a nice view of the city looking down. I can only imagine what the views were like from the High place of Sacrifice (another site in Petra, at the top of the mountain).

A view of part of Petra, all carved out of the mountainside - Impressive!

I completely lost track of time, until I started to feel hungry. My early start had meant that I had not had any breakfast, and it was now 1:30pm and I was famished. We sat and ate lunch, by which time, Pippy and Omar had decided to wander up to the monastery. I was due to meet my driver by 4pm for the journey home, and so I reluctantly left them (much to the relief of Omar) and started making my way back up to the top of the siq, taking pictures as I went.

The journey back up is one i can understand people taking donkeys and horses back up for, but these poor creatures do not look in the best of health and I was not keen on seeing the donkeys being whipped so that they would run uphill (in the baking sun), so I made the decision to walk it back. This also meant that I could get some photos coming back out of the siq too.

I took some more photos of the treasury as I walked past it again. It is quite interesting that at different times of the day it has a different hue to it. When i took photos of it in the morning it was rose red (Petra is actually nicknamed the Rose-red city), but when I returned, it was a golden colour. I lingered around here for some more shots before finally making the long journey back to the surface. I have to admit that by the end of the trek out of the siq, which had taken me about an hour, I was feeling pretty exhausted but at the same time I also felt quite exhilerated and even spent a few minutes haggling with a store owner over a rather tacky Petra hat and t-shirt.

The treasury is thronging with people all of the time,
so this shot is quite lucky. Notice the different colour?

Finally we started the long journey home. I was slowly nodding off, when Samir slammed on his breaks. Standing in the middle of the road was a group of camels, idly milling around. I have heard of humps in the road, but this was ridiculous! Still, I can understand why he braked like he did, as hitting a rabbit is one thing, but hitting a camel would have wiped out the car (they are bigger than a horse). The remainder of the journey was uneventful, the sun was setting and i was slowly nodding off in the car. We got home at about 8pm, which was not bad going, but it was a long day, and after showering and ordering room service, I was soon in bed and sound asleep.

When the sign said humps in the road for 50 yards,
I did not realise that it would be so literal................

I will add pictures later, i have taken almost one thousand, so sorting through them will take time, plus i was too tired to attempt this last night!

Entering Jordan and the Citadel

Early this morning I made the journey from the centre of Cairo to the airport in order to catch my flight to Amman in Jordan. At 5am Cairo is wonderfully peaceful, and not gridlocked with cars! It had not been possible to approach Jordan from any other route other than this, as the hotels all around Petra (where I am trying to get to) are packed out. Therefore I am staying in Amman, and am going to drive down there instead.

The flight was uneventful, but it was interesting to note that the plane has to fly south and go into Saudi Arabia before turning north to Jordan. The simplest route would of course be for it to head due east over Israel. Without asking why, I am suspecting that planes from Arab countries all avoid Israeli airspace, either through choice, or because they have to. I suppose some tensions still run high!

Anyway, I arrived in Jordan and was greeted by Mr Ali, a local taxi driver, who was only too keen to help me part with my tourist dinars when all I wanted was to get to the hotel. Still, he was incredibly friendly and was extremely helpful in showing me a few sights along the way from the airport to the hotel. My early impressions of Jordan are that it is much more friendly and welcoming a place than Egypt, and also less invasive of your personal space (i.e. if you say no, you are not pestered). Also, the people here seem really proud of being Jordanian, and the amount of times I have been asked “we hope you enjoy our country” is nice to see.

Amman is built on hills, and the urban sprawl looks great from on high

I actually arrived too early for my room, as it was still being prepared, and so I had a couple of hours to kill, which Mr Ali managed to fill for me by taking me to the Roman ruins at the Citadel in Amman and showing me the Amphitheatre, even coming along with me and taking a few photos for me. My love of old things, was enough to wake up my flagging body and I happily wandered around in the Jordanian sunshine snapping away at Roman columns.

The Citadel has had many influences over the years, it was firstly a Roman temple dedicated to Hercules, then later, a Byzantine Basilica was built here (6th-7th century), before the Umayyad Arabs arrived destroying the Basilica and they built a palace here ( 9th century). This was destroyed by an earthquake soon after completion, and it seems like all of these things had been left to ruin since that time until recent years, when preservation and restoration of the mosque (in particular) was undertaken.

The Roman temple to Hercules, or should that be Heracles....

Umayyad homesteads....well, what is left of them anyway....

Take my word for it, there are the remains of a 6th Century Byzantine church

Amman is built on hills, so you can get some lovely panoramas from on high of the whole city. The mountain that the citadel is on is the highest in Amman, and so commands spectacular views of the streets below, with one of the nicest being the view down to the Roman amphitheatre hundreds of feet below. The architecture of the city is gorgeous, really reminiscent of other Arabesque countries in North Africa. Combined with the sound of the mosques calling everyone to prayer, it really is a wondrous feast for the senses.

The citadel affords nice views of the Roman amphitheatre

After a couple of hours here, I returned to my hotel, and finally my room was sorted out. I am actually in a brand new wing of the hotel, and the smell of newness is still on the room!! All I can say is this place is lovely, nice and spacious, beautiful decor, a LCD TV, and more facilities than you could shake a stick at.

My room is smells brand new. I like the office in the corner allowing me to
keep my finger on the pulse of the international money markets. Sell, sell!!

Tomorrow I have arranged for another early start so I can make the long trek down to Petra, where I am hoping to find the Holy Grail that Indiana Jones left behind....I think all these early starts are catching up on me (I was up at 4:30am this morning), as this afternoon I just fell asleep for 2 hours (which is smething i rarely do). I am looking forward to returning to work, so that I can have a lie in....