Hi again,
what can i say about Petra? Well, I can safely say that it has rapidly overtaken Palmyra as my fave stop on this trip - by a long, long way.
It is another ancient city left to lay in ruins after successive empires have taken it over and left to decay and disintegrate over centuries of time. This time it was an empire by the name of the Nabateans Arabs, a nomadic tribe who settled in the area, and that ruled from around 600BC to around 100AD (if my stats are right), when the Romans came and took over. In amongst the Wadi Musa valley stand enormous rust-coloured sandstone rocky outcrops and escarpments, rock faces and cliffs that have been moulded by a combination of centuries of erosion and fierce weather.
The site is semi-arid, the friable sandstone which allowed the Nabataeans to carve their temples and tombs into the rock crumbling easily to sand. The colour of the rock ranges from pale yellow or white through rich reds to the darker brown of more resistant rocks. The contorted strata of different-coloured rock form whorls and waves of colour in the rock face, which the Nabataeans exploited in their architecture. The first major sight here, and the most instantly recognisable, is the Treasury, a 40 metre high facade carved into a cliff face, intricately and exquisitely carved, with an entrance to a large square room designed for hiding treasure.
The whole site of the city of Petra is enormous, and on the climb up out of one valley then descending into another, you pass the impressive amphitheatre, Royals Tombs, and the tomb of the Roman Soldiers amongst a myriad of other small memorials and facades. The final climb leads up to the Monastery, another enormous building, 45-50 metres tall, from around 100AD, carved into a cliff face, this time with Roman influence in the design, as this was towards the end of their reign.
Aside from the sheer magnificence and majesty of these buildings, simple walking thru these hills and valleys on a gorgeous, warm winters day, with perfect blue sky, and the sun beaming and reflecting and beautifully showing off the colours of the sandstone was simply awesome. part of my enjoyment of sites like this, and Palmyra and Ephesus, is just wandering thru, hiking up and down the hills, and enjoying the moment and wonderment of thousands of years of history.
If i thought that was good, the next 24 hours really put me in my element. Directly after our full day at Petra, we drove off into the desert to spend the night soaking the cultural experience of camping with a Bedouin tribe. Bedouins are (or were, in centuries past), a nomadic group of people, tribes spreading out all over Egypt right thru to Syria, surviving off trading of animals and handicrafts, pitching down and pulling up their tents whenever they felt the need to move on. In recent times they have settled down more, and are pretty much minorities in their own homelands these days. If my mother berated me from time to time with 'hey, do you think you live in a bedouin tent' whenever i left the front door open at home, well now i can say that i did for 24 hours! When we arrived, it was already dark, and almost immediately we were served up with a feast of traditional Bedouin food - various meats and stews with rice, cous cous, and a number of salads (more for the Western palate), which was followed by some musicians and an impromptu dance session in the main tent. The good ol' sheesha pipe was also soon brought out for a bit of a communal smoking session, with various fruit flavoured tobacco. I've become quite partial to this middle eastern delight, having sampled cappacino, raspberry, apple and orange flavoured tobacco's. Mmmmm, yum.
After a night sleeping under a tent woven from camel hair with the campfire ermbers still burning (too cold to sleep out under the stars, altho one of our group chanced it in the sub-zero temperatures), we rose early for a brief little camel safari jaunt for an hour or 2. And then, if enough historical and cultural highlights hadn't already been packed in, the thrill-seeker highlight of a jeep safari thru the desert sand dunes was next!! Woo-hoo! Riding in the back of a jeep, we sped off thru the plains before hitting some heavy duty sand dunes, tackling them head-on. A bit of a foot race up one particular dune was on, after which the dozen of us that went out were totally knackered. Amazing views tho.
Unfortunately, it was then time to go - onto Aqaba, the border town, before then leaving Jordan for Egypt. More on that next email.
I had the most amazing past 24-48 hours of the trip, so much excitement and adventure packed in...let me just say that i was glad to be alive!!
I think that's a good note to finish on.
talk soon,
tony
peace love and happy faces
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