The Old City of Petra

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We get a nice sleep in today as we don’t get collected to go through Petra until 10am. Magid (our driver) literally just walks us across the road to the entry and hands us over to a guide, his job done!

Our guide introduces himself, and straight away says we can just call him George, thank goodness because I think his name had a good quantity of the alphabet in it! He says there are 3 different types of guides there, some that need the money from the job, some that do it for pleasure (George is in this group and has been doing it for 16 years) and others are volunteers, so I guess they do it for pleasure too.

We learn that he was in fact born in one of the caves inside and moved out in the 1980’s, so he has a pretty close attachment to the area. There are some people still who live inside.

He tells us the history of Petra and tells us not to read any of the information signs along the way because they are all wrong!

THE OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION

“The city is surrounded by towering hills of rust coloured sandstone which gave the city natural protection against invaders. The colour ranges from pale yello and white through to rich reds. The contorted strata of different coloured rock forms swirls and waves of colour which the Nabataens exploited in the architecture. Petra was first established around 6th century BC by the Nabataen Arabs, a nomadic tribe who settles in the area and laid the foundations of a commercial empire that extended to Syria”

OUR EXPERIENCE

We first have to walk a fair distance to the start. On either side of the road way we walk down there are lots of caves cut into the sandstone. These were once where people were buried, they have since been relocated and buried elsewhere. All along this road there are people with horses if you don’t want to walk.

Then we get to what’s called the ‘sic’. It’s where you walk through an open topped tunnel through the sandstone mountain. It’s said this fissure was made during an earthquake and there are some parts where you can see how each side would fit perfectly into each other. The colours are already spectacular at the start, but the further along you go the deeper the reds get and the patterns get more bold. Everywhere you look it’s like a kaleidoscope of patterns and colour. There are water channels built into the sides to carry water along. And there are also distance markers. These markers are statues in the sandstone of a camel and its drover. They are placed every 30km, which back in the time was one camel day. They have now unearthed the original cobblestone roads and there are tracks visible from the chariots that were once used here daily, apparently they are the same width as the first railway tracks. This section is just over a kilometer long and there are horse and carts that will take you to the next section.

As you round the corner the famed Treasury façade comes into view. I’d only seen it in pictures and in real life it was amazing. As you get closer to it the detail and colour just hits you (along with the heat!) and you feel dwarfed by it towering over you. You are not able to go inside, but you can see from the outside the extra rooms and there are also rooms underground that were accessed be steps in the front. These have a grate over the top but you can still see them. There are other caves nearby that were used for people to gather in. You can go inside these, and they are huge with patterns so intricate in the sandstone any artist would love to paint them. From here you can catch a camel or donkey to the next section.

There is a bit of a walk now and it’s hot and it gets windy, but not a nice cool breeze, but a hot strong wind that kicks up huge dust storms. Bit tough on the poor old eyeballs!

We pass the section where important people were buried, the walls of the mountain were carved with a lot more detail and the finish is a smooth flat front.

The next section is literally the city. There is a road of shops on each side and then at the end of that there is the houses built into the sandstone and also a big theatre. The theatre would hold about 7,000 (or as our guide said, 6,000 Americans or 9,000 Japanese).

We are told only 15% has been discovered and opened to tourists, there is so much more still buried.

We part company with our guide here and go and look in a cave that is opened to tourists, there are some pots, statues etc that have been found in there to look at. But the most startling thing about it is the temperature; it is so cool in there! You would easily believe there was an air conditioner running someplace.

We have a buffet lunch at one of the little restaurants there and then start the hike back. For some reason, we refuse all offers of donkeys, camels, horse carts and horses back to the start. If you chose you could do the whole thing quite comfortably, only walking from one mode of transport to the next.

We meet a group of Australians who are doing a tour of ‘Architecture in Biblical Settings’ after having done a course, who would have thought there was such a course, let alone a tour!

We finally make it back and collapse!

AN EGYPTIAN MASSAGE…

We go to get our massage. The guy we spoke to yesterday wasn’t there just the guy and girl who will be doing our massages. We explain what it was that we had arranged to get and then get sent to a change room to get ready. I’m given a sarong and Tim gets the biggest pair of shorts I have ever seen in my life!

We are then directed to a room each. In the room along a wall is a big granite table, a sink with a big basin of water sitting in it and a bowl with a very soapy sponge. I ask Tim through the curtain if he heard what we were meant to do, he has no idea either. I go back out and ask the girl what they want us to do. Neither of them speaks much English, damn. She directs me back to my room and takes my sarong off me and lays it on the granite. She folds a small towel at one end and tells me to lay down on my back with my head on the towel.

Then she uses a cup to pour warm water from the basin all over me, interesting…

Then she gets the biggest, scratchiest loofah I’ve ever seen and scrubs me all over, then flips me over and does the other side, maybe now the massage…

Remember the soapy sponge? Well now this comes into play, I literally get a sponge bath! Okay so perhaps this is the bit before the massage…

She uses the warm basin water to rinse off all the suds, tells me to sit up and pours the rest of the basin over me…

Then she directs me to a shower and says ‘good massage’ and I say yeah, thinking that the ‘good massage’ is coming. But no, she tells me where the towels are and says to get dressed after I’m dry! Where’s my massage! I think all that happened is I had a few layers of skin removed (and my nice new Egyptian tan) and a sponge bath. I ask Tim if his was the same and it was. Not happy Jan.

I end up on the phone to the boss we spoke to yesterday and eventually get him down to 10 Diners each - $20 Australian each for a bath! I feel really, really clean though, I tell Tim he looks as white as when we started our holiday!

TIM CAN’T WIN TODAY

We go for tea at a restaurant in the street. Tim finds a picture of a burger just like a Hungry Jacks Whopper, big patty, tomato, lettuce, onion, nice fat roll. He’s sold! Until it comes out - small thin patty, a plate of tomato on the side, no lettuce, no onion, still a fat roll though! So not only did he get duped with his massage, he was even robbed of his burger! My tea was great, a Jordanian dish made of chicken, garlic, tomato, onion and rice - yummmmy!

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