Exploring Petra

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On Wednesday, we took a minibus to Petra, an ancient City built by the Nabateans, who were Arabs who traded in frankincense and controled the trade route between Damascus and Arabia. They adopted many of the customs and building styles of the people they traded with, and developed advanced hydrolic engineering to control floods. Most of the remaining buildings, those that have survived the numerous earthquakes in the region, were carved directly into the beautiful pink rock.

As soon as we arrived, we headed for a hike in the site. You enter the main area through a beautiful mile-long canyon, called the siq, which ends in a view of the giant Treasury building carved into the rock (this is where Indiana Jones found the grail in The Last Crusade).

We hiked through many of the ruins, me singing the Indiana Jones theme song, and climbed up to a building called the Monestary for sunset, getting very beautfiul views as we hiked back down.

Then we headed to the Cave Bar, which is a bar set into a 2000 year old burial site. We sat in one of the tombs, which was a little creepy, and drank our beers.

After dark, we headed back through the siq for Petra by Night, which is a tourist thing where they set out candles through the siq and then have the area in front of the Treasury filled with candles. They have a musical performance, and we stayed for a little while before getting annoyed with everyone's flash photography, enjoying the quiet walk out through the siq more.

The next day, we took a long hike through another canyon and visited most of the other main areas of the site. The mountains are so naturally gorgeous, and all of the interesting stone carvings makes it really fun to explore. Petra has a Bedouin Village, and we met a couple of young guys who offered us tea and sat and chatted with them. In manner, dress, hairstyle, etc, a lot of the guys look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carriabean, which made me think this is a place Aimee should definitely visit.

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