Onward to Petra, Jordan

So as I said, primarily I was away for the conference, but those of you who know me well know that I will take every opportunity for adventure as it presents itself. A good friend for years had been to this same conference when it first occurred 3 years ago and had decided that if it happened again he wanted to hop over to Petra. I don't have to be asked twice. So since I enjoy trip planning so much, and life had taken over his time, I just decided to take on all of the arrangements for that leg of the journey - border crossing, taxis, onward flights, etc. With only a couple of minor hiccups that really amounted to no worries. We realized a day before departing the conference that the border closed 2 hours earlier that I had thought. Stupid military time. So it was a little bit of a rush getting there and getting across to Jordan, but ended up being perfect since we avoided any of the border traffic. Out of Israel, down the long walk through "no man's land", and into Jordan in about 15 minutes. The driver was supposed to be waiting across the border when we arrived, but no one seemed obviously expecting us. I called the number I'd been given. No answer, and the vultures were descending. I called the hotel owner who I'd made the arrangements with, and he apologized profusely that he'd forgotten to finalize the time with the driver who was at that moment 1.5 hours away in Wadi Musa (the village near Petra). Oops. The collection of drivers at the border told me one of them could take us for 60 JD. Uh, no, I had an agreement for 45 for the driver I arranged, so why should I pay more? They nodded in admiration of the good deal I'd made and insisted on talking to the hotel owner. So after some discussion and negotiation, a deal was struck that one of the drivers at the border would take us for my pre-arranged price. So we hop into a cab that takes us into the city of Aqaba and into a residential neighborhood to behind an apartment building where we hop out of the one cab and into another to make the rest of the drive. Don't ask why we had to change cars. Sometimes these things just don't need to be known.

In fact, the timing of everything was perfect, so getting into Jordan in the evening meant we could be at the gates of Petra by around 7:30 am. That let us get the amazing morning light and avoid the hoards of tour groups that pass through at the mid day. The entrance to the city of Petra is through the Siq - a long and narrow canyon with dramatic red sandstone cliffs rising on both sides that form a passage through loosely joined puzzle pieces. The city itself was build by the Nabateans more than 2000 years ago and was a central location for trading in the region. It must have been absolutely amazing at the time. This was at a pinnacle of art and science in the middle east, and the evidence for their advanced society is impressive - water channels were cut into the rock face that were covered to prevent contamination and had built in filtration for sediments. They even somehow calculated the gradient of the slope so that the channel is level throughout the city, thus controling the rate of water flow. And looking around the absolutely barren landscape, it's obvious why water was so precious.

The first "wow moment" is at the exit from the Siq into the front of the Treasury. This is one of the two most famous buildings at Petra, and it really is breathtaking to walk through the narrow rock passage and catch the first glimpse of the columned building. Made even better by the two resting camels in front and no people littering the view. We hung around the Treasury for quite awhile watching the sunlight rise over the rock wall to briefly bathe the glowing face of the Treasury. It's beautiful how the color of the rock changes depending on the light. The building itself is the best preserved of the site, and the intricate carvings of the pillars and sculptures just reinforce the amazement that all of this was done more than 2000 years ago, not built from stone but carved out of a solid rock face.

Onwards and further, you start to appreciate the massiveness that must have been this city at it's peak. There are caves and elaborate tombs carved into every rock face stretching through the valley for miles. We had decided to clamber up a mountain to the High Place of Sacrifice (where I managed to avoid the threat of bloodletting) to see the view of the surrounding valleys and then passed over the back side of the mountain past other monuments and tombs to work our way back around to the main route. I had thought that would be the end of our first day, and we'd save the major tombs and the Monastery for day 2 but was easily convinced to climb up to the Monastery with plenty of afternoon remaining. This meant a grand total of about 20 miles of hiking and probably over 5,000 feet in total elevation gain. I was pretty proud of my endurance and refusal to be "broken".

We reached the gate precisely at the closing hour and passed on offers for a cab ride up the hill into town. When you've already walked so far, what's another mile or so? Good decision, because as we passed through town we came across a bakery and decided to pop in for some bread to complete our picnic the next day. The shopfolks were extraordinarily friendly and gave us tastes of various sweets, so we purchased a couple of extra treats along with our pita breads. Off in the corner of the shop, there was a guy at a long table bagging pitas as they fell from the ceiling. Somehow we thought this was just the funniest thing ever - pitas raining from above, and I was taking video while we laughed and marveled at the whole thing. So some young guy came over and asked if we'd like to see where they come from. I said absolutely, and we followed him up two flights of a back stairwell into a room that was a maze of machinery. Every pita in the surrounding area must be made in this one bakery. Hundreds of pitas at various stages of production snake through the room, and they are running the marchinery from 3 am until 8 pm each day. The guy enthusiastically led us around to show us where the dough comes out in balls, how it gets flattened into pancakes, and where it travels along layers and layers of conveyor belts into the flaming furnace oven to be cooked. He even took our four steaming fresh pitas and replaced them with four that were straight out of the fire - doesn't get much better than that.