Petra, The City in Stone

“You have chosen…… wisely.”

                                      These are the words quietly spoken by the Third Grail Knight to Indiana Jones after Indy chooses the correct chalice from a roomful of imposters set out there to confuse the “impure of heart”.

                             We hope to have chosen wisely as the destination for today is Petra, who all will recognize as the setting for The Temple of the Sun in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The façade used in the movie is that of The Treasury, the most famous of the hundreds of buildings, tombs, residences, a monastery, an amphitheater, and a Byzantine church, to name a few, that are strewn up and down this long cleft in the Jordanian wastelands.

                             The  first thing that we did after when we signed up for this cruise was to reserve our places on this particular Shore Excursion fearing that it would sell out quickly. That may or may not have been necessary as I believe that most of the ship is venturing to  Al-Batra ( in Arabic) for a glimpse of this UNESCO World Heritage site. This may not be the most satisfying visit to an archeological site that we could have, just for that reason. The top factor of the dangers to the preservation of this place is that of over-tourism, and we are as guilty as any of the thousands, (like just shy of a million) of visitors every year.

                   It is quite obvious that we cannot be the only people at Petra when we visit. In fact, now that we are part of an organized tour that has a set starting time, we do not have the luxury of making our own plans. Had we been here on our own, we would have gotten up really early and hiked in to be the first ones there, just waiting for some sunlight in order to capture these sites without the hordes of people invading the photographs. Yes, I do have Photoshop, but I do not have a clue as how to work it.  So, the peeps will stay in the photos. But I will do my best to minimize them, short of using a Taser. 😊

                   This area of the world has seen its share of Pre-Biblical strife, then over the subsequent years came the usual wars between the Who-Cares-ites and the We-Were-Here-First-ites, and the skirmishes were usually over those favorite trading items that we’ve come to know in these parts, and those are the spices! Turmoil was the order of the day, week, year, and century. It was a miracle that anyone had anytime to accomplish anything!

                   Until…. The Nabataeans arrived!

                   In about 100 BC (yes, I still use the old AD and BC nomenclature!) These Nabataeans filtered in and took control. Up until then we had the usuals from the area doing the usual things that these guys usually did like overrunning their neighbors, conquering, and dividing, enslaving for a while, but just until the next gang moved into the ‘hood and took over. All of these different peoples are all familiar to us ‘cuz we’re going to go back to our World History again!  Let’s reintroduce ourselves to the teams and players of the day,  we’ve got (again) the Assyrians, Babylonians, Elamites, and even the Phoenicians managed to insert themselves into the mix.

                   A few hundred years went by with all of these guys vying for the position of Grand Poo-Bah in the region. Deals were made and broken, kids fought their parents, lesser brothers toppled their Big Brothers in charge, the next guy, smelling blood, swooped in and either took them over completely or, liking what they saw, just annexed them as vassals and demanded tribute. This went on for hundreds of years and even those pesky Canaanites got a few jabs in every now and then.  Well, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard, but I kind of doubt that you need or want any more information than that as I am quite sure that you get the gist of all of this.

                   We’re going to go back to the beginning of the paragraph before last…. In about 100 BC our hero’s, the Nabateaens, fought, cajoled, twisted arms, and generally emerged as the victors and finally had some time to make this place into what it is today……

                   I kind of doubt that any of their forward-thinking leaders sat around the temple and said, “Hey, let’s build a really cool place that millions of tourists will want to visit someday, and just maybe we’ll get named to some futuristic list of places that need to be saved from all of this fighting!” But who knows? I was not privy to those meetings as I just ran the local camel burger joint in my former life.

                   The Nabataeans were at the right place at the right time. Their location was basically at the intersection of all the main drags of the time. We have here the convergence of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Remember how I said in a post or so before this that the areas around here were so small and close together (think the Northeast States of the USA) that trade was just a ship or camel caravan ride away? Well, things were even better than that and business went crazy good! Those spices and other trade items flowed in and through Petra with such a velocity that the Naba’s were flush with cash!

 And what do we all do when we get a boatload of money?

We build really big houses that are better than our neighbors!

 Not only are we going to build some mansions, we’re going to show how powerful we are and carve them out of solid rock! (Yea, I know it was sandstone, but still!)

Things went well for a few hundred years until the clouds on the horizon began to form, and just like the Hobbits could see those ominous signs of future problems hanging in the air over Mordor, The Naba’s were powerless to resist the powers coming from the north….

Namely the Romans and the Byzantines.

                   With those guys swooping in, the Nabateaens eventually were assimilated into the conquerors and ceased to exist as an entity. But things were on the decline anyway because the shipping industry eventually took enough of a share of those highly profitable trade routes and like any business left on old Route 66 when the modern Interstate came through, just like ‘Radiator Springs’ in the movie Cars, grand old Petra slipped slowly into obscurity. Eventually the area came under the control of the Muslims and Christians who fought back and forth for control until the Ottoman-Turks moved in and stayed in power until the early 20^th century when Peter O’Toole, as our hero T.E. Lawrence (better known as the British military guy in these parts, Lawrence of Arabia) Sir Alec Guinness, Claude Rains, Anthony Quinn, and Omar Sharif swooped in made an Academy Award winning epic of a movie. Well, first, before anyone could make a movie about him, the real T.E. Lawrence needed to pull all of these different peoples apart and then put them back together again. It is quite the story and well worth the three-hours plus needed to watch! All these actions brought an obviously short-lived peace to the region.

                   That brings us to today, literally!

          We boarded one of about twenty(!) buses filled with all of us passengers eager for a glimpse of one of the highlights of this cruise, The Lost City of Petra. We had all seen the photos, but who needs them when the real thing is just a two-hour bus ride away! Rumors abounded about what we would encounter when we arrived. With all of the communicative technology available to us you would think that there would not be such a discrepancy about the distances and topography needed to traverse in order to get there.

                   No one really knew anything.

                   Stories filtered back to us via internet sites and posts, and they had us either walking up to ten miles (uphill both ways) or “One mile in and two miles out”. Yes, that is a quote.

                   We wondered if someone had moved that guy’s bus a mile further than where he was dropped off! Anyway, there were so many different distances associated with all of this that we just went with some averages. We knew that we needed to walk in about a mile, walk around the site, and then walk back out. It is 100% uphill for the entire way out, and then some sick-o made way too many steps to get up to the parking lot!

                   The Secret Entrance to this marvelous place is called the “Siq”, (translated, means literally ‘the shaft’) which is a very deep and narrow cleft cut through the sandstone. While it looks a lot like a slot canyon, the Siq is actually a geologic fault that has split the rocks that were then worn smooth and shaped by water (as a real slot canyon is) If any of you have ever been to the Slot Canyons of Page, Arizona, or southern Utah, you will have an idea of what it looks like. For the rest of you I will provide a nice photo!

                   Someone had a plan as there could not be a more dramatic entrance to such a highly anticipated site as this! After about a mile (or two if you’re that other guy!) of walking through the seemingly endless ever-winding passageway of the Siq, a glimpse of your destination comes filtering through the dimly lit canyon.

                   The twist and turns of this softly lit dungeon of a trail cleverly hide the grandeur of your Golden Fleece of a moment until at last the rocks burst open to reveal the Treasury building directly in front of you!

                   Bathed in the morning sunlight, it shone its rosy sandstone portico with all of the grandeur that you can possibly imagine!

                   The trip was worthwhile, and the all the photos ever taken of this edifice can never do it the justice, and fulfillment, that it gives you when you first glimpse it.

                   Then the fun starts!

                   Just staring at it, taking in its centuries worn details, dreaming of what life was like here when this place was the center of its local universe just boggles your mind.

                   It has to have an effect on you!

The Treasury was not by any stretch the only thing to see here. The main pathway through this ancient city has so many different buildings and structures that you have to keep turning around to look in every direction in order to find them all! And they are all carved out of the rock and into the hillsides! Assorted examples to follow!

                   Now reality sets in and you realize that you are there with thousands of folks just like you. Some are there because it’s something to do, maybe check off their “cool things to do” list. Others are there to experience it in all its glory, and after thinking about it, maybe there should be signs around asking everyone to speak in whispers, if at all, like there are in the Giant Redwood forests of Muir Woods National Monument in California.

                   Instead, be ready for locals selling everything from Aladdin’s Lamps to rides and photo-ops on camels. In reality, bedlam ensued giving the place a Middle East bazaar-like atmosphere that was not entirely bad considering we were in the Middle East!

                   Remember those twenty buses that left the Island Princess bound for Petra? Well, they were going there because apparently there was a Bus Convention or something, for when we arrived there were probably another hundred (100 x 40 seats! ) or so of their brethren disgorging eager passengers, all with the same goal.

                             A selfie in front of The Treasury.

                             With a camel in the photo!

          For me, my quandary was how to get some significant photos without the rest of the known world posing in front of me. This was the issue that had me in a tither for longer than I would care to share with you, however it was significant. But, as usual, the reality did not meet my delusional expectation’s and I found myriads of ways to try and just capture all of these magnificent buildings in their solitary glory. I will include some ‘Peoples Photos’ both for scale and to illustrate how popular this place is!

                   After thinking (or brooding) about this, I have come to the conclusion that the shear impact and grandness of this wonder far overshadows any reticence that I had with visiting here.

                   There is only one Petra, and it is still here, after all these years, waiting for you to come and get a selfie with The Treasury.

And when you meet the old Monk, he too can whisper to you….

                             “You have chosen…… wisely.”