Jordan and Israel - Day 4 (Petra)

Jordan and Israel – Day 4 (Petra)
 
It’s been two days since my last post, but today I’m only going to touch on yesterday; I’ll catch-up on today, well, tomorrow.
 
We arrived at the town of Petra on Friday night.  A number of us went out to a local bar/restaurant which had been built into a cave in the rock – that’s where that pic of me smoking a hookah is from.
 
The majority of the next day – Saturday - was spent in Petra, the archaeological site.
 
We gathered that morning for a short walk to enter the site.
 
Thumbnail:  Petra dates back to the fourth century BC.  Built by the Nabataeans, who were masters of rainwater collection and management, stone carving, and agriculture, with Petra itself being a big trading site that made them pretty darn wealthy.  Rumor has it that the Three Wise Men purchased their gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold at Petra.  The place had buildings, temples, a monastery, burial chambers, and more.
 
You enter it through this 1 ½ mile pathway through a stone canyon named The Siq – the video I posted yesterday showed the last few steps before entering the first plaza where “The Treasury” is revealed.  From there on, there’s a (huge) series of walking and hiking paths in a variety of directions.  Overall, we spent about 5-6 hours there, and I chose to take “the long walk” to the Monastery, which – I was told - had 1,000 steps to climb to it.  For the full visit, I had more than 18,000 steps and 79 “flights” of steps per my iPhone.
 
Every turn revealed more eye candy, whether it be natural rock formations or what has been built into it.  The varying color of the rock is amazing, and the fact that it’s all lasted this long is amazing too.
 
It was crowded with tourists, and industry has grown up around and inside it – donkey, camel, carriage, even golf cart rides; vendors selling all sorts of trinkets, and cafes where you can get soda, food, juice, ice cream.  But if you ignore all that (or make it part of the experience), it is just darn incredible.
 
Like a lot of places in the world, photos and videos don’t do it justice.  One of the most moving places I’ve ever been.
 
Go.  Just go.
 
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