Located in the heart of the Jordan desert this city was built by the Nabateans around 100 BC. It served as a connection and post in one of the routes of the silk road. It was conquered by the Romans and part of the city still evidence it with Roman pillars and other architecture. The Siq and Facade of The treasury were made famous by Indiana Jones movie, The last crusades. It was also declared an UNESCO world heritage site. And since Israel and Jordan made peace it has seen more and more tourists visiting its monuments I arrived to Petra from Israel in the early morning, after crossing the border by foot we arrived to a taxi stand.

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 P2911
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The Taxi Driver Didn't seemed very worried about us, he was the only one parked there and the nearest city, Aqaba, seemed a long walk. After negotiating the price for a roundtrip (its good to know they are going to take you back to were you came from, sometimes) we took off to the road. What seemed to be a long journey stopped after a couple of minutes for a car and driver change, he could only takes out of the border.
Once in our new car the way through the desert started. Highways in Jordan are wide and empty. We made several stops along the way, and saw many shepherds, Bedouins, innumerable amount of little mosques and women wearing a full length black burqa. Finally we arrived at wadi musa, Petra Town.

Our driver took as to his favorite hotel (the one he had an arrangement with). Just after 10am after dropping our bags we headed down to the ancient city. Entering To the Siq and winding down the 1.2 km narrow path to finally see the Facade of the Treasury is one on the most gives a feeling of a romantic adventure, as if were part of a Novel or an action movie. After staying in awe for 15 minutes or so, just taking pictures and watching at the incredible work of shaping a whole mountain side as a Temple, we decided to proceed to the rest of the buildings.

Just passing the Impressive Treasury the walk continues towards a narrow path that leads to the rest of the city, where the inhabitants actually lived, prayed and walked in. The Impressive buildings were only for religious or political matters and citizens would actually live in small caves. The sights are vast and cannot believe your eye, just when you get close they are really massive. After playing in the Theater and around we were invited for tea with some bedouins, the heat started to be painful and most of the sights crowded by day trippers in organized tours. We decided to roam around the Urn Tombs and listen to what the tour guides had to say. After an hour or so we started our way up to the monastery visiting first the Roman part of the city, which is not as amazing as the rock carvings but still of a great architectural value.

The climb up the mountain to the treasury is hard and we stopped several times to go out of our way and see strange forming, caves and fantasize about finding some hidden treasures. Of course bedouins and treasure hunters got ahead of us for many hundred of years and we find only broken pieces of tourist paraphernalia. Once in the Monastery we rested with our views fixed to the massive monument standing in front of us. Apparently day trippers don't have enough time to come up here and we had the place only for ourselves.

Taking advantage of the loneliness a climber invited us to go to the top of the monastery by a hidden path in the back of the structure. We followed suit and suddenly we had an amazing view from the cylindrical top. Just after getting downs some guards of the Arab legion stopped by, but they only wanted some cigarettes. we stayed talking and they said to us to visit the magnificent views of the gorges at the end of the city, even further up. The views were truly amazing and we rested there until sunset. When we went down the place was almost empty and the peace floated in the air. Nature gave us another gift, when we left there was a full moon setting behind the mountains and while the sky was turning from blue to pink and then black we made our way back to the city for a well deserved Arabic coffee and baklava.

Things to do and places to visit
The Siq,
Monastery
Treasury
Pass the monastery and enjoy an awesome view

Image Code:
 2912
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 P2913
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Image Code:
 P2914
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