Petra Jordan day 1: Petra by Night

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We had booked to participate in a 3-day tour through Jordan with Petra being the highlight. Unfortunately shortly before the trip, Lesley encountered some difficultly with her leg and it quickly became clear that she could not tolerate sitting in a coach for long journeys nor traipsing the uneven paths we would reach. Don decided to still take the trip with the group. Fortunately the operator Tourist Israel Tours was able to change our double booking into a single. Thus the blog post text and pictures for this trip will be provided entirely by Don, and Lesley should not be blamed for errors in it.



The day started with an early taxi ride from home to Netanya where most of the group boarded the coach at 6am. It stopped briefly in Zichron Yakov to collect a few more passengers and then headed east to the Jordan border. My breakfast at a rest stop within Israel was coffee and a cinnamon bun to eat with the my banana I brought.



We crossed from Beit She'an Israel over the Jordan River via the Sheikh Hussein Bridge into Jordan. Our first interesting experience occurred in this Jordan border crossing. It was still reasonably early (about 8am) and there was very little activity at the border, so we expected to cross quickly. However we were detained on the bus for nearly an hour. We saw there was some periodic discussion between our tour operator and the Jordan border guards. Eventually we were allowed to enter Jordan officially. This involved leaving the Israeli coach, taking our bags through passport control and customs, and boarding a Jordanian coach with local driver and guide. When our ride headed south, one of the passengers apologised to the group for the delay. When the border guards first came onto the bus and quickly inspected us, she had binoculars. But they were not just any little binoculars (in fact I had a weak mini foldup binocular within my backpack, and others might have carried similar items) - nope these were big powerful military binoculars. After much hidden discussion and to-ing and fro-ing the Jordanians decided to invoke the 'no military equipment' border clause and prohibit them. They took the binoculars for safe keeping and gave the woman a voucher to collect them upon crossing back to Israel. Too bad for her that we would not cross back at the northern border point, but rather at the southern crossing from Aqaba to Eilat; so if she ever wanted to get them again she would have to make a special trip to that first crossing point some day.



The coach rambled south for several hours on the King's Highway, a major artery road in Jordan. The condition of the pavement was poor, and the going was slow and bumpy. When the guide told us we would travel the King's Highway route we figured it would be a nice smooth multi-lane road, but then we discovered the reality.



Our first tourist stop was in Madaba. We went to St George's Greek Orthodox Church to see what is called the Madaba Mosaic Map. This is within the impressive mosaic floor of a church from the early Byzantine period. The mosaic depicts much of the middle east and shows part of the oldest remaining map of the Holy Land including Jerusalem. The map was created around 550 CE and although Madaba was substantially destroyed in 746 by earthquake, the map survived more or less. We had lunch in a restaurant in Madaba and then headed out on the coach again.



Next stop was Mount Nebo in the mid afternoon. According to the bible, the summit of Mount Nebo is where Moses stood and surveyed the promised land before the Israelites entered. He was not permitted to cross the Jordan river. Mount Nebo is a peak about 700 metres above sea level. It is less than 20km from the northern shore of the Dead Sea opposite Jerusalem. The relative height of Mount Nebo compared to the landscape depth of the Dead Sea area makes it effectively much taller. It was a fairly clear day and indeed we could see quite a distance in all directions. There was some signage identifying the region, and a few monuments and similar items, all generally recent. There was scant archaeological evidence about the biblical claim, other than the view. Still I did feel it was a significant site and felt a surge of faith from the sight of Israel from there. Interestingly many fellow passengers expressed similar feelings on the bus as we headed further south toward Petra.



At a rest stop I did not get Turkish coffee. I snacked on a granola energy bar and a small packet of airplane nuts from the supplies I had brought. We finally reached the Petra Sella Hotel about 7pm after a full day on the coach. The room was OK accommodation for the one night we were staying. Dinner was provided in the hotel.



A comment about food and drink on the trip. We were only told about a week before departure that the food would not be specifically kosher. An email informed us: "As no assurances can be given as to the integrity of available Kashrut in Jordan we have arranged for vegetarian options throughout. In view of recent developments in Jordan it is recommended that no religious artefacts are brought on the trip." That latter sentence meant we would be taking a risk if we brought Jewish prayerbooks, phylacteries or prayer shawls and that they might be confiscated (like military binoculars?) or otherwise cause problems; thus I opted to skip wearing tallit and tefillin for 2 mornings and daven privately with the prayers on my iPhone. Regarding vegetarian vs proper kosher food, I and a few others decided to eat only the cold salads and similar items as it was impossible to know that dishes such as spaghetti would conform to requirements. At lunch on this first day (and again the second day) and dinner on this first night that compromise worked out reasonably for me and I felt I had enough salad to eat. Read more in the day-2 blog about how this plan panned out.



After dinner we climbed aboard the coach for the short ride from the hotel to the Petra historical area. We were not told much in advance about how exciting 'Petra by Night' would be. Of course after all the day's travel we certainly wanted to get there and start seeing it. However we were briefly warned that it would be a relatively long walk through a very uneven passage. The path from the Visitor Center plaza to the famous Treasury building is about 2km and consists of flat-ish rocks, sand, ruts, etc - bearing in mind that the passage developed by floods over the millennia wearing away the steep mountain walls. A couple of people in our group opted to stay in the hotel either because they were just too tired from the long day or for concern about their walking ability, but most of us went. Of course those who missed the night tour still saw Petra in the daytime on day 2.



The bus unloaded us in a coach park outside the Visitor Center. In fact it was many steps above the Visitor Center plaza which meant two things. First we had an interesting perspective of the lit-up plaza area some distance away (although no view to the ancient Petra sights beyond it) and secondly it caused a few passengers to pause and realise they were due for some serious walking. Right at the beginning of our trek down to the plaza I began to help a woman from our our group down the steps. She had a walking stick and was a little unsteady especially on the somewhat dark steps without handrails. When I offered to assist she accepted my arm and explained that she had recently suffered a leg problem which was in the process of healing. From that point onwards, as we fell behind our group, it seemed she would need my further assistance but I did not mind. We did catch up with the group as they waited for our guide to get all the entry tickets and hand them out. Then shortly after going through the entryway and seeing the path ahead we began falling further and further behind our group. But as our group was strung along the path our guide was not explaining anything, so we did not figure we were missing much. The pathway soon descended from a wide pavement down to a narrow passageway about 3 to 12 metres wide with side walls up to 80 metres hgh. There were sparse lights occasionally on the sides of the path, but generally it was dark and hard to see the stones sticking up and ruts within the walking path. Much of the time I used the light from my iPhone to show the way directly ahead of the woman whom I was accompanying. (Luckily I keep a backup battery pack when touring so I was not worried about the phone battery running out.) The passage was very twisty so we had no idea how we were progressing toward the destination and kept hoping we would see it around the next bend. Meanwhile we made a number of 'breathing' stops and time was passing. Occasionally 1 or 2 people would pass us heading back to the Visitor Center and we asked whether the Petra by Night event was finished and should we turn back ourselves, but they indicated it was still in progress.



After a long slow walk (during which I had not monitored the time) we started hearing music. Likewise we sensed increasing light and noise ahead. A few turnings later we gained our first glimpse from between the passage walls of the Treasury building bathed in coloured light. This tall imposing building was the Treasury in Petra. Its reddish sandstone facade was featured in the film "Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade." There were many candle-like lamps around musicians in front of the building in the centre of a throng of people. Just then the music crescendoed and the lighting became more active. We watched the impressive sight, very pleased we had arrived. A few minutes later the music ended and everyone applauded. Then people dispersed and started heading back to the Visitor Center. When the woman whom I was assisting had caught her breath we began walking likewise. As some of our group passed us, we told them to please inform the tour leader that we were indeed on our way but would probably be last back to the coach.



The walk back was similar to the earlier walk, slow and poorly lit. Soon nearly everyone else had passed by. Among the last we saw were another couple of women from our group, with one of them helping the other. From that point on the four of us trekked together at a slow steady pace. Eventually we exited the narrow passage onto the broader pavement heading back to the Visitor Center. I called the tour leader and told him where we were; he said the others had not been on the coach long and of course would wait for us. Some minutes later we finally left the Visitor Center and found ourselves back at the bottom of the long staircase. The women looked up the stairs and were not happy to climb back up. So I called the tour leader again and he asked me whether there were police near us. I replied yes police and also a taxi. He explained that if the coach left the bus parking and tried to pick us up down there near the Visitor Center then the police would cite the bus driver. The women said they just wanted to get into the taxi and take it the relatively short ride to the hotel. The tour leader said OK and I jogged the staircase to the coach. When we got to the hotel the women had just paid the taxi driver and gone inside.



Everyone was exhausted and went to their rooms to sleep. The next morning at breakfast there were discussions about the night's activity. They told us that there was a long wait around after they got to the dark Treasury building area while the musicians set up the lanterns and played music for what seemed too much time. When we had arrived just at the ending, apparently that was the exciting bit where the lights switched on. So they told us we really had not missed much. Most felt that the 'Petra by Night' tour was not worth the trek, especially after all day on the coach.



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