Petra

Today's classroom: Petra

Petra is one of the 7 wonders of the world and probably in Dad's top 3 as places we hoped to see prior to starting this crazy adventure. We got up early and left Amman about 7AM to make the drive south to Petra.  We are all in full on battle with colds at this point and no one is really feeling too chipper as the weather has been cold and dreary the last few days.  But this is a one day stop and something that must be seen if visiting Jordan, so we have to make the best of it and we work our way through the better part of a Kleenex box on the drive down.

Here our Jordan Passes work perfectly and we are now in the black on these as entrance into Petra cost 50JD for an adult. We get a guide and begin learning about this fascinating culture and people group who were virtually untouched until the Romans arrived.

The Nabateans were nomads and traders who were polytheists, yet there is evidence of educated peoples as some graffiti writing exists, although nothing to amount to a historical record of who these people really were.  There is definitely something illusive about these people as to their lifestyle, influences, interaction with the outside world through trading, their amazing skill in creating the hidden city of Petra, and the many unknowns of their history and culture.  They were eventually conquered by the Romans and over time and destructions from earthquakes, the bedouin community settled here.  The Beduoins are cave dwellers and many still consider this home today.

Remains of water channel

We see how they have two different water channels built right into the rock, one for drinking and one for animals.

In front of path that was created when earthquake split the large rocks
(you can see that the rock shapes match up and fit together behind the kids)

We meandered along the winding path once traveled by caravans, amid the tall rose colored rocks and all of a sudden came to an opening with a large structure known as The Treasury, but famous today for it's appearance in the Indiana Jone's Last Crusade but unlike the movie, there is not a room or entrance inside.  This structure was carved out of rock in the 1st Century BC.  It is estimated that it took twenty years to carve this building and the workers began at the top and worked their way down towards the ground.  Upon discovery, the bedouins thought it was a pharaoh's treasure and so they shot arrows at the urn at the top thinking there was a treasure inside.  We explored this area on our own and then visited with our guide over our first Turkish coffee (coffee with cardamom), and learned that it is believed that only 20% of Petra is actually uncovered, that the majority of it is still underground!

Initial view of the Treasury

Family photo in front of The Treasury - its HUGE!

Lingering Camels

We continued walking towards the tombs and learned that the royal tombs were most likely for the Nabatean kings, while the governor's tombs were fancier than the commoners/family tombs which sometimes contained five or more bodies in one tomb.  However, the one thing all of the tombs have in common are that they each have steps up to heaven.

Governor's tombs

We were surprised to witness an amphitheater.  It is believed that this amphitheater was built by the Nabateans and influenced by the Greeks as it faces the east; whereas Roman amphitheaters face towards the north.  It's believed that the amphitheater was used for festivals, celebrations and competitions, although exact details are not known.  Later the Romans came as evidenced by the wall that they added along with more seats - the amphitheater could seat up to 6,000 people!

Incredible amphitheater could seat 6000 people!

 heavy Roman influence here as we came upon
     (-note for pict: colonnade St called cardio bc Romans meaning heart of city - destroyed by earthquake in 749)

We parted ways with our guide and obliged to get the kids the only lunch option available, a buffet of which we correctly predicted three of the children wouldn't eat any of what they took.  Then due to time and dwindling energy, we opted to ride donkeys to the top.  Each person rode their own donkey and unfortunately somehow Dad got started way after the rest of us took off, so he was trying to catch up while we were trying to get our guide to slow us down.  But it was tricky as the animals were climbing up and the path wasn't that wide, meanwhile other visitors were walking up and down on the same narrow path.  Ironically we ran into our new RVC friends who live in Amman and happened to be visiting Petra with their family that day!  We really enjoyed our donkey ride up as it was a unique way to experience Petra.

Oldest venturing up Petra path on donkey

G & SJ climbing their way up!

All of us at the top on our transportation animals!

Once we arrived to the Monastery, we explored a bit.  This structure is the setting for the last ten minutes of the Transformers II movie.  We then began climbing our way up to the highest look out point.  Here there was a Bedouin man making tea who we chatted with for awhile.  He lived in the tent at the top of this mountain and we were in awe of his lifestyle and amazing views.

Fun shot in front of the Monastery

Who could resist that?

Pano from the "top of the world"

The walk back down and towards the entrance was long and some of the kids began to drag.  We stopped and explored some of the tombs and admired the ripples and colors in the rocks that were absolutely beautiful as we slowly made our way back to the entrance of the park.

Look at the colors in these rocks - beautiful!

We then headed to our unusual Airbnb stay for the night.  It was advertised as a Bedouin cave, and while our host was a Bedouin who actually was born in a cave in Petra and still stays in it, our accommodations were in a small home.  We visited with our host and asked him a lot of questions.  We enjoyed hearing his stories but felt a bit awkward as the conversation seemed to all be one-sided.  We thought maybe we were being too sensitive interpreting this vibe as we were distracted with hungry tired children, but it turns out that it is the Bedouin culture that they are not allowed to ask questions for the first three interactions with someone new!  It is part of their hostility culture which requires them to accept any traveler for a period of time because someday they may be traveling and need shelter.  Today this cultural requirement is often being abused by world travelers where it likely will never be receiprocated. It turns out that the cave/rock structure this gentleman had built next to his home was also an option for us to sleep in for the night.  Mom and Dad were excited about this unique experience, but we couldn't rally any of the tired children, so we let them sleep in beds in the home while we slept on the floor of this cave/hut on some cushions.  It was definitely unique, but everyone was exhausted and slept well.

Hut/Cave Mom and Dad slept in near Petra