From the Red Sea we hung a right and entered the Gulf of
Aqaba, docking in Aqaba Jordan and taking a day trip to Petra. This meant we
only had a little over 3 hours, which wouldn’t be enough for your first trip to
Petra, but since we were there a few years ago, it was long enough for a
re-visit. We ditched the guide and wandered with our cameras. As we compared it
to the other 6 wonders of the modern world, we decided that Petra might rank
number 1—at least in our humble opinions!
Since we ditched the guide, there’s only a brief history
lesson. Petra (pronounced pee-tra, rather than pe-tra) was built by the
Nabateans some 2200 years ago. The Romans came in and took over, but eventually
left giving it back to the Nabateans. Petra was gradually abandoned by the 15th
century and was not discovered until 1812, by Johann Ludwig Burckhards.
The Nabateans kept the Romans out for a long time because of
the Bab as-Siq, called just “The Siq” today. It’s a half-mile cleft between the
rocks that’s barely the width of 2 horses in some places. Getting to Petra requires physical
exercise. The distance from the visitor center to the Siq is another half mile.
Walking through the excavated part of Petra is another half mile each way. So
just to visit requires a minimum walk of 3 miles—going out is uphill! If you
visit the Monastery, which we didn’t have time for this trip, it’s a 2-mile
round trip.
Pictures 1-3 show some of the beautiful views walking
through the Siq. Once the Romans arrived, they did make some interesting
improvements. On both sides of the Siq, they carved aqueducts out of the rock
to carry water from a reservoir at the beginning of the Siq, downhill to Petra.
Picture 4 shows an example. They made clay tiles to fit inside and covered the
tiles with mud to provide a waterproof surface. They then covered the aqueducts
with stones to provide clean water to Petra. In a couple places you can still
see the covering and original tiles.
If you look at Picture 5, you will ask “What are these
people queuing up for?” They’re queuing to take their Indiana-Jones-moment
photo, shown in Picture 6. Can’t remember which of the Indiana Jones movies was
filmed here, but imagine Harrison Ford on horseback and the first view of the
treasury.
The treasury, shown in Picture 7, is the first big building
you encounter as you make your last bend in the Siq. It’s also the
best-preserved building. The façade, as you see it here, is about 130 feet
tall. It’s also a great example of how Petra was built. They didn’t carve
blocks and columns and stack them up. They looked at the rock wall and carved
out everything that didn’t look like a building. All the buildings are
essentially caves that were carved into the rock. Imagine the vision that took!
The rock here is all sandstone and, over time, has worn
away—not uniformly. Picture 8 shows one façade that has formed an interesting
pattern of rock as it wears away.
Picture 9 shows several homes carved into the hillside—an
apartment complex of sorts.
Picture 10 is the Main Theater. Again, this was carved from
the hillside.
Picture 11 is the Royal Tomb complex. Picture 12 is a
close-up of the façade of one of the royal tombs.
The main street goes by all of these spectacular buildings.
When the Romans arrived, they names this street the Cardo Maximus and proceeded
to pave it with stones and build colonnaded shops along the side, similar to
what we’ve seen at other Roman ruins. That area is being restored today and is
a jumble of columns and stone pieces. The Romans also added the Temenos Gate,
shown in Picture 13, which separated the commercial part of the city from the
sacred area.
Finally, as you walk to the end of the excavated part of
town, you see the trail leading up to the Monastery, shown in Picture 14. On
our last visit we made the hike up there—several hundred feet of elevation and
a mile of walking up to the top of a plateau, where the monastery, looking much
like the Treasury, still stands.
The trip to Petra from Aqaba takes you along the Asian-African
rift—the great chasm created as the continents collided. Picture 15 shows
scenery looking out over the rift. As you can see from the pictures, the
weather in Petra was sunny (and very hot). On our way back to Aqaba we had a
sandstorm and a few drops of rain, making everything a bit gloomy.
Following a day at sea, as we worked our way around the
Sinai Peninsula, we queued up to enter the Suez Canal. It’s a one-way street,
allowing about 50 ships to go north and then 50 ships to go south. We entered
the canal at about 6:00 in the morning and exited about 4:30 in the afternoon.
The Suez Canal is different from other canals we’ve seen. There are no locks.
It’s just a big ditch that was dug between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean
Sea.
Picture 16 shows a view from the bow of our ship. Picture 17
shows the line of ships behind us. The west bank of the canal is populated and
fairly green. The east bank is desert, as shown in Picture 18. We saw only one
city of any size on the east bank.
Into the Mediterranean and on to Israel….
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