Petra, The Lost City

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(Dustin)
Who knew life could be so expensive in Isreal? After sleeping most of the afternoon and all night after being up so many nights in a row with not so good sleep and staying up for Sinai we got managed to make out way down to the beach in Eilat to hang out for a couple hours and swim some. We actually ate pretty good there though because we started going to the grocery stores instead of restaurants.

We kind of last minute decided to go to Jordan that night and head out to Petra and stay the night there if we had to. We knew we would be a little squeezed for time if we decided to head back that night for the border before it closed but just played it by ear. The people in Jordan actually were some of the nicest we've met in this neck of the woods. They managed to make it work so that we had a HUGE meal as soon as were were done running through the rock city.

Petra is pretty huge though, there are so many trails to take and tons of views and different holes to explore. Everything is carved into the rock. One of the largest, the Pharoahs Treasury is amazing because the amount of rock they cut through just until they actually started carving the actual form of the building into the rock. There was a myth that at the top of the tomb the carved urn there held treasure. You can see bullet holes around the area from bedouins interesting in finding out the truth.

The entrance to the place was amazing, I think kev gave the real facts but it was a really neat Roman paved pathway down through a fissure in the rock that they used as a processional into the city. The Romans being their smart selves carved water channels in the rocks along the pathways all the way down into the city and had cisterns and dams all over the place to direct the water wherever they needed.

Another amazing thing is that the city was lost for as long as it was considering even the Romans used it. Its a very desolate place now with most of the main carvings along the wall for tombs rather than houses but with the irrigation and ducts they must have had, it might have been a pretty place. It was pretty neat standing on the High Place above the city and seeing carved stone in the hill cliffs and Roman ruins in the center of the Valley.

One really cool thing about these countries here are that they actually care if your a student though and give you something like half price off all the major prices so we've saved alot in this area by getting an ISIC card. I never thought I'd say it, but there are some good parts to being in school.

Cheers,
Dustin


(Kev)
The Same day we Climbed Mt Sinai we crossed the border into Isreal. When we arrived at our hostel, I put my bags down, and then I was out cold for 16 hours. The second day, we eased back into the travel scene by taking it easy on the beach, and let me tell you Isreal is a "lovely" place...but this blog isn't about Isreal, or its pretty ladies which help make up what is without a doubt the most beautiful army in the world. No this blog is about Jordan.

We took a day trip out to Jordan to a place called Petra. Petra is an ancient city that is built entirely in rock. The city was built by the Nabataeans who carved palaces, temples, tombs, storerooms, and stables from the rocky cliffs, and it dates back to the 3rd century BC. Walking into Petra is an awe inspiring experiance, the walk way leading to the main site is 1.2 km long and is a gorge that was carved out by water. At the very end of this walkway the first glimpse of the Pharough's Treasury comes into site, and I got the felling that I was about to walk into something truly incredible. One picture can't capture how amazing this place really looks, it gets name because of the, "misguided local belief that pirates hid their treasure here"(Lonely Planet).

The Lonely Planet also explains that the Nabataeans (Arabs) chose Petra because of its concealed location from the outside world, and walking into it I can see how it is the perfect choice.

Lets Go Isreal, explains that, "For 700 years, Petra was lost to all but the few hundred members of a Bedouin tribe who guarded their treasure from outsiders. In the 19th century, Swiss explorer Johann Burkhardt heard Bedouin speaking of a "lost city" and vowed to find it. On Agust 22, 1812, he became the first non_Bedouin in thousands of years to have walked between the cliffs leading to the "lost city" (Lets GO Isreal).

Learning about Petra, and even better yet walking through it, was a tremendous experiance, if you Google in Petra facinating facts will pop up that could keep anyone entertained for a long while, Petra is also the place where portions of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed. I filmed some video's here as well but unfortanetly I left my memory card in the taxi...so i lost that and some other pictures, but what can you do.

It is hard to decide what site or country has been the most amazing...but if Petra hasn't been my favorite...it is very close.

Internet is not nearly as cheap here as it was in Southeast Asia, so this may be one of our last blogs. I guess this just means we will have even more pictures to share when we get home.

Well I hope the summer is going well
Catch ya later love Kev

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