Petra Notes

Finally getting around to writing about my Petra trip. In a word, it was fantastic. Though I tried to arrange a group trip down with some classmates, those plans fell through and I ended up spending most of the time alone. Still, the desert scenery and the ruins were well worth the travel and were truly unforgettable.


Some Highlights:

• The very bearable weather and the surprisingly light crowds. I never felt like I was dying, and had a lot of the most spectacular vistas to myself.
• The walk through the narrow cavern, or Siq, to the city itself. The geological formations in there were fantastic - I could have gone home happy even after seeing just that. 
• Hiking up to the High Place of Sacrifice with some Qasid folks, and then returning down via another path through a bunch of cool tombs. Again, totally empty, except for myself and the other students. 
• Meeting up with some local archeology students after the Qasid people went home. We chatted over dinner and met up in the park again the next day - they do excavation and old things full-time, so they certainly added a new perspective to my trip.

• Watching five wedding processions drive by our restaurant on Friday night, horns blaring.
• Realizing that my ATM card was not working, threatening to put me on starvation rations for the remainder of the trip.
• Having my dad fix said problem with the ATM card, giving me plenty of cash to spend on whatever I wanted.
• Foolishly blazing my own arduous trail up above the Royal Tombs, to the summit of the mountain into which they were carved. From here, I could look down on the High Place of Sacrifice, and also to the Treasury facade. Had this all to myself. I would have been pretty screwed if I'd broken an ankle or something, but I got home just fine. 
• Finding a stone staircase back down from said mountaintop, and realizing that my arduous hike up could have easily been avoided.

• Hiring a Bedouin guide, Abdullah, and his donkey, Michael Jackson, for a ride up to the splendidly isolated Monastery. The ruins were of course nice, but the mountain scenery was the closest this planet will ever come to Avatar's Hallelujah Mountains. Breathtakingly beautiful. 
• Gin & Tonic and Dinner at the ritzy Movenpick Hotel in downtown Wadi Musa. A perfect way to relax, especially with the Swiss ice cream bar afterwards. 
• Being the first person in the park on Sunday morning, and getting the entire place to myself for 15 minutes. Silent, deserted, colored by the sunrise... and I may have even snuck into the Treasury to check it out before the guards arrived. 

The major bummer was realizing that my piece of cr*p camera couldn't begin to capture the beauty of everything I was seeing. I'll post more pictures on Facebook eventually, and link to them here, but you'll just have to trust me when I say that my pictures don't do this place justice.