Jabal Khabathah

Today was our adventure in the Petra Archaeological Park.
Was it amazing? Hells yes. And to give you an idea of just how amazing today was, there are three things I hate: Being cold, climbing stairs, and hiking...and I willingly did all three today, and Petra was worth all three.

We were up at 5:45am (correction, FOUR things I hate), and at the Petra Park entrance at 7am. The sun was just rising on a clear, cold morning, the moon was still fully visible, and we had the entire place to ourselves.

I had envisioned Petra much like the Pyramids of Gaza in Cairo: You show up, pay your fee, walk in, and boom! There they are.

Petra is nothing like that.

As you enter the Park, there is a modern visitors' center; a short walk downhill leads to the main entrance. Once you enter, there is a 1 kilometer/.75 mile gravel road winding downhill, past temples and ruins; then you come to the Siq, the gorgeous pathway snaking between the tall canyons. At 7am, the canyon walls were red, pink, orange, and purple, and absolutely silent (AND COLD). The Siq path continues for 1.5 kilometers/1 mile, and then, in a real-life Indiana Jones moment, the canyon opens to reveal the Treasury- the famous symbol of Petra. It is simply breathtaking.

There were so few people at the Treasury that it felt like a private visit. We got some amazing photos- depending on the weather and time of day, the rocks look very different. We were absurdly lucky to have a clear, sunny day as our backdrop.

We continued on past the Treasury, and the site opened into a massive space, called the Street of Façades. Petra's 2000-year-old stone structures were originally massive tombs- they are carved into all the rock walls in this area. Though as the "Façade" name suggests, you can't actually go inside them.

We explored the Royal Tombs, a set of four massive tombs atop a steep stone staircase. One of the tombs, the Silk Tomb, had rock striations running up the columns in bright rainbow colors. I've never seen anything like it.

We continued walking to the end of the main path, about 4 kilometers/2.5 miles from the main entrance, and embarked on the Ad-Deir, or Monastery, Trail. This trail is about 1.5 kilometers/1 mile straight up a stone staircase: 800 stairs, to be precise. We were warned that this trail is hard, but possibly the most impressive site in the park. At the top is the Monastery, a tomb that is similar to the Treasury, but on a wide-open hilltop, rather than in a narrow canyon.

The walk up was spectacular. We were again the only people, aside from the Bedouins who live and sell tea and souvenirs in the canyons. And the morning went from I'm-wearing-thermals-cold to T-shirts-warm (though I'm sure that stair climb helped to warm us up). We reached the Monastery in about an hour, and found an amazing viewpoint to relax and savor our private view.

After an hour or so, we began the walk back down. We stopped to have tea with a Bedouin woman and her daughter, and to play with the many kittens frolicking around the staircase. By the time we reached the bottom, back on the Street of Façades, we were starving. Luckily, we had packed a lunch from little shops near our hotel: Fresh pita, soft cheese, falafel, apples, and a tub of halvah. We had ourselves a little picnic in front of the Petra amphitheater.

(Side note: If you don't know what halvah is, I suggest you go find some right now. I love nuts and creamy desserts, and halvah is like peanut butter nougat, filled with nuts. I eat it by the forkful, straight from the container. But I also eat Nutella out of the jar, so maybe don't follow my example.)

Later in the afternoon, we decided we were full of Petra and tombs and staircases and halvah, and began the three-mile slog all the way back uphill to the park exit. As we exited, we saw a sign at the fancy-pants park hotel adjacent to the gates that this exact moment was happy hour. Two things: One, Jordan is Muslim, so alcohol is hard to come by, and two, if any moment in time screamed "you earned a beer," this was it. That is my way of saying we hustled inside that hotel bar and toasted our 15.5 kilometer/10.5 mile Petra hiking adventure with truly vile white wine.

And then we went back to our hotel for very long naps.Read more