Petra
One of the most interesting historical sites I will visit on this trip – Petra is an ancient Nabatean city near Wadi Mousa, Jordan that is exceedingly well preserved and has made it into popular culture via Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
After a fun, whiskey-filled birtyday drive from Wadi Rum to Wadi Mousa, we settled down for the night into our “hotel” – and today got up early to go visit Petra. the ruins are hard to describe in words, but emerging from the narrow canyon to see the Treasury is truly amazing.
he rest of the city sprawls out over a great distance, making Petra a full day (or multi-day) experience, depending on your pace. From the treasury, you can walk along the Street of Facades – dotted with tombs and temples – as well as an amphitheater that would have held nearly 7000 people.
After this, you walk down until you reach the Street of ollonades, a column-lined street that would have been lined with freestanding buildings, although today only two temples remain.
Finally you can make your way up the lengthy staircase to the Monastery – perched atop a hill, over time it would have served as a tomb, temple and even church.
Overall, Petra was an amazing site to take in – although my advice is to visit it in the morning before the crowds. tomorrow I’m having an easy day before we move on to Amman and then the Dead Sea. I’ve had a chance to finally get a lot of my pictures uploaded – here are the links for the various albums:
Petra – http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2382688&l=68891&id=1928719
Wadi Rum / Aqaba – http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2382683&l=faa5b&id=1928719
Cairo – http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2382078&l=98461&id=1928719
I should hopefully eventually get some more Wadi Rum pictures, several of the other climbers have taken some good action shots – so I will post those when I can retrieve them.
