Petra!

The Traveler

By now, many of you who are my Facebook friends have seen the pictures I have posted of my trip to Jordan. I've read many comments regarding me as a brave, adventuresome traveler and I have to laugh a little to myself. Nothing is farther from the truth!  I will use this forum to educate my "land locked" friends regarding the two types of travelers.  There's probably more than that, but this is what I have learned so far.

Traveler #1

Traveler #1 is the confident, well organized traveler.  She keeps all pertinent information in a special pocket folder.  Always well prepared.  She breezes through the maze of passport control lines, ticket counters, and security checks; ready to whip out her passport at a moment's notice as if she was ordering a fast food at at McDonald's.  No typical traveler's dilemma could ever cause her to break into a cold sweat.

Traveler #2

Then there is Traveler # 2.  Me.  The "deer in the headlights" traveler; always fumbling around for her passport, while dropping her MasterCard.  (Thank you, anonymous kind person who picked it up off the floor and handed it to me). She is drawn like a magnet to the wrong line after waiting for about twenty minutes trying to figure out who to ask for help.  She is always about five minutes away from an anxiety attack.  

It takes a lot of patience for Traveler #1 to coexist with Traveler #2.  This situation is not unlike your typical twelve year old trying to show his grandpa how to find the on button on his new iPad.  Suffice it to say that in this case, Traveler #2 was very grateful to Traveler #1 who showed extreme patience towards Traveler #2.  Thank you, Penny.

Petra

The Siq. This is a mile long gorge that leads into the city of Petra.

Nothing could prepare me for the experience of setting my eyes on Petra.  It was like nothing I had ever seen before except perhaps Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.  Everywhere I looked was jaw dropping splendor; mountains, sky, and, of course, the caves and carved facades.  Were they once temples, tombs, or cave dwellings of our ancient ancestors?  So much mystery and sheer majesty.  Scholars began studying Petra in the early part of the 18th century.  They have learned a great deal, but much of the history of the ancient civilizations that once inhabited this "Rose Red City" is lost to time itself.

What we do know is that Petra was a Nabataean caravan city.  It is located between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea at the center of the caravan trade.  Petra is said to be the spot where Moses struck a rock and water "came forth."  As another point of interest, the site was included in the Steven Spielberg movie, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

The Obelisk Tomb, the first of several tombs I saw around Petra National Park.

First glimpse of The Treasury

The Treasury.  Not a treasury at all.  The Bedouins believed that it was the storehouse of Pharoah's great wealth.  They thought it was most likely hidden in the urn at the top.  You can see bullet holes where the Bedouins tried to shoot holes through it, hoping that gold and jewlels would come pouring out.  Other scholars believe it to be a royal tomb.  Most likely it was a temple to Al-Uzza, the great goddes of Petra.

The Street of Facades.  The street is lined with tall, impressive tombs, with large facades on their fronts.

A royal tomb.

The Triumphal Arch located at the entrance to Collonnade Street

One of the many unexcavated sites on the side of Collonade Street

Temple of the Winged Lion built around 27 AD, thought to be another temple to the main Nabataean Goddess Al-Uzza, destroyed in the earthquake of 363 AD.

The Monastery

We had some extra time before we needed to leave for the next leg of our Jordan trip, so I decided to continue on to the monastery.  Now if I had done my homework (but remember I am Traveler #2) I would have already known that the hike to the monastery usually takes about an hour, and oh by the way, that includes about 800 steps, and somebody neglected to tell the ancient Nabataeans that handrails would be appreciated by the next generation.  So I plodded bravely on, hoping that the monastery would be right around the next turn.  Every time I met up with someone on their way down, they kept telling me it was about ten minutes away.  The local Bedouins that sold trinkets along the way kept trying to convince me to hire a donkey to take me the rest of the way to the top.  There was no way on God's green earth that I would have EVER ridden a donkey up all those steps, much less down the mountain.  I had no desire to find myself on the local news: "American school teacher scraped off the side of the mountain. Not a pretty sight." So I plodded on....

The scenery took my breath away.

Almost there.

The Monastery.  So glad I didn't turn around!  It is called the monastery because it was thought to be used by Christians in the Byzantine period.

It was most definitely worth the trip.  I'm sure glad I grabbed a bottle of water before I left that morning!

This was only Day #1 of our Jordan trip and there would be many delightful surprises before we headed back to Kuwait.  I will wrtie more later.  The next leg of our journey: Wadi Rum Camp!