Petra rocks

We topped off our Israel trip with the long-anticipated journey to Petra.

In a word, Petra is fabulous. For some stupid reason the picture I had in my head was of one monument, the Treasury, from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That was my favorite IJ movie; KC took me to see the new one in Cairo. As far as I'm concerned, Karen Allen was the most convincing alien in the film. As KC would say - Watch Out!



Right, so Petra is marvelous. The site is huge and positively jammed full of tombs and monuments. The Treasury is only one of many, many carved tombs scattered over a very large area. It's probably one of the best-preserved and delicately-carved, and it's the first one you see when you exit the sinuous curves of the Siq. We arrived in Petra in the late afternoon and decided there was enough daylight left to warrant a fast expedition into the site. And boy, was it worth it - Petra at sunset is gorgeous and largely emptied of the vast hordes of tourists that clog its arteries during the day. It was basically the four of us, a small group of young Arab men, and the rocks. As we came through the Siq, a long entry canyon, it felt like every twist would disclose something spectacular. I craned my neck, eager for my first glimpse of the Treasury. And when it finally did come, it caught me by surprise despite my vigiliance: a peek of carved turret, high up on the wall of the canyon.

That first day we didn't make it past the Theater; there was too much to see right there in front of the Treasury. And no, there's nothing inside the Treasury that resembles the set from the movie. Behind the facade are large rectangular chambers, remarkable for the precision of their demarcation. But the stone itself was the biggest surprise: beautiful scaled whorls of sunset colors, purple, rose, pink, orange, white, undulate over the surfaces at Petra.


We stayed in the Petra Palace Hotel, which would have been adequate if the toilets had kept on flushing - and the management hadn't been so dismissive of our need for functioning sewage disposal. At least it had a pool. I was disappointed that we didn't go to eat Nabatean food and drink beers in a converted tomb, but one of our buddies wasn't too keen on the idea. Next time, I guess.

Two horrifying things about Jordan: First, some idiot has decided that the dinar is equal to the euro. I can't imagine what sound financial principle this crap is based on. And the second horror: the restaurant owner tried to charge me seven dinars for a shisha! Can you imagine??

The second day was hotter and more strenuous. KC and I got up as early as possible to try to beat as many tourists as possible into the park. We hiked to the Siq entrance, where the day before we'd found this sign and turned left, into the Siq itself. This morning, we turned right - and hiked right past the sign. You can see me down the trail a piece. We followed the trail through a series of narrow twisting canyons. Frequently we had to team up to pass our bags over large drops before we could both pass the obstructions. If there had been a flash flood, we would've been toast - we could see the high water marks far over our head, and they didn't seem to be too old. Eventually, though, we came out at the far end of the Theater, near the Palace, and met up with our other friends - by texting, ironically.


At the worst possible part of the day we tackled the hike up to the Monastery. We opted out of the many abused-donkey-ride offers and scaled what seemed like a million stairs up to the top of the cliff. The view was worth it: the Monastery, Aaron's tomb, the river Jordan, and clear out to Israel.


Go to Petra. Spend at least two days there, and be prepared to get up very early in the morning. It's worth it - Petra rocks.