Today we did Petra, although my body feels
more like Petra did me!
We were up early for some glimpses of the
sun coming to light up the folded landscape below our hotel, and then off to
the site. We were given the low-down on various forms of transportation and the
going rates, be it for horse, horse-drawn carriage (buggy, chariot???), donkey
or camel. That should have been a bit of an indicator of just how big a site
this is. There were up to 30,000 Nabateans living in the city at one point. It
was a centre of the trading routes and due to the forces of nature, essentially
impossible to assault (so the Romans had to move the trade routes to bring them
to their knees).
The soft sandstone of the region has been
shaped by earthquakes, water, wind and people to make it a unique place. In
places the layers of colour went from tan to rust to purple to black. We started seeing various caves and forms
carved from the rock thousands of years ago as we approached the entrance to
the suq (pronounced “seek” – don’t these guys know there should be an u after
the q…). This is the entrance channel over a kilometer long created originally
by an earthquake, but then honed by erosion. The layering of the sandstone is
wonderful to behold, and we soon were simply at loss for words… after a while,
“wow” doesn’t seem to cut it any more. At its height, the walls reach almost
100m as we continued to slowly descend.
Finally, our “Indiana Jones moment” when we
came around another twist, and behold, a façade over 45m high of the
“Treasury”. Much of what we would see in the next couple of hours was various
mausoleums or monuments for the dead leaders of the city. These were carved
from the sandstone cliffs with room for a few bodies of the important folk that
they were built for. On the top of each of them was a pair of stairs
symbolizing their ascent to heaven (apparently “Stairway to Heaven” is older
than I thought).
Of course with each further step, we had
the opportunity to buy things, right up to the top of a viewpoint at the
further end of the complex – over 900 stairs above the starting point for that
bit. A Bedouin clan previously occupied this site, and the payment for moving was
a new town close by, and exclusive rights to provide services and wares within
Petra. The small children selling cards were a constant presence, and the
teenage and young men selling donkey and camel rides were… young men who seemed
particularly persistent with young women. But the adult merchants were
impressively courteous and pleasant, no doubt a gift from their culture which
values hospitality in an inhospitable climate.
We understand that the tourist trade has been in terrible decline since the “Arab
Spring”, so rather than try further to express my amazement, I would say you
need to see this to believe it!
