‘Ayn aş Şadr

Greetings from Jordan! This week is our wedding anniversary, and for the first time since 2020, we are celebrating in a new country- Jordan.
If you're not familiar with Jordan, it's a Middle Eastern country bordered by Israel to the west, Syria and Iraq to the north and east, and Saudi Arabia to the south. It's a fun neighborhood, but Jordan is stable, peaceful, and prosperous monarchy- it's even home to the world's fifth strongest currency. And being a trivia nerd, I will also add that Jordan contains the lowest point on earth- the Dead Sea, at 420 meters/1260 feet below sea level- and is the only country named for a river. And it's #82 in my leetle country collection.

We're here to see one of the great wonders of the world: Petra, the fabulous ancient city from the 1st century BC. It was the capital of the Nabataean Empire until it was abandoned after a 4th century AD earthquake. Most people became familiar with Petra from 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," where it was featured as the Valley of the Crescent Moon where Indiana receives the Holy Grail from the ancient knight. For me, Jordan never really registered as a destination until Expedia opened a tech hub here in 2018, and I began hearing from my colleagues about the amazing place I was missing (I was never able to join a business trip here, despite my best efforts).

We arrived in Jordan last night by an unfortunate group of fours: A four-hour flight, four hours of sleep, then a four-hour drive. Our original flight was supposed to depart at 3:30pm, but was moved to 5:15pm...then 6pm...and finally 7:30pm. Jordan is two hours ahead of Barcelona, so we landed in Amman, the capital, at 1:30am, picked up our rental car, and checked into our hotel at 3am. And at 7am, we were back up for the four-hour drive south to Wadi Musa, the home of Petra and many other ancient sites.

A four-hour drive through Jordan sounds like an exciting journey. I assure you it was not. The Desert Highway is straight, wide, and plows right through scrubby, barren desert. The only interesting thing to see was the three, count 'em three, times the cops pulled us over (routine security checks due to the war in Israel). But after four hours, we arrived at our destination: Siq Al-Barid, or Little Petra.

Petra Archaeological Park is a massive, 102-square-mile site. That seemed a bit overwhelming to begin our Jordan adventure, so we decided to warm up with a visit to Little Petra first. It's a tiny version of Petra- just 450 meters/1350 feet long. It was built in the 1st century as a Nabataean suburb, and contains shockingly intact remains of rich residents' homes. Little Petra was excavated in the late 20th century, and as recently 2010, archaeologists discovered the only known Nabataean ceiling frescoes in existence. It's also the ignored sibling of Big Petra, so we had it all to ourselves.

We spent an hour viewing the red stone façades and marveling at the canyon. Petra looks shockingly like Arizona, with its multicolored, deep gorges, and red rock. If you'd told me that I was at the Grand Canyon, I'd believe you. On a clear sunny day, the views and light quality were breathtaking.

At the back of the site, we climbed up a steep set of stone stairs, cut into the canyon, that led to a Bedouin tribe's tea house. It overlooked Little Petra, and we sat and enjoyed our tea with the Bedouin owner and his cats as we stared out over the endless canyons.

It began to get very cold- those canyons are like giant refrigerators- so we left Little Petra and drove fifteen minutes to the town of Wadi Musa, a village on the edge of the Petra Archaeological Park. After stopping for hummus and shisk tawook at a small restaurant next to the Petra Visitor's Center, we wandered into the Petra complex to scout for our big adventure tomorrow.

Can I just say: Petra is HUGE.

Tomorrow we will conquer it!Read more