Petra, September 4, 2009:
Miles and I got to the entrance to Petra a little after 8 a.m. this morning. The entrance fee was about $30 each. It was a 20 minute walk to the narrow, serpentine canyon that winds through the steep cliffs. The walk was all down hill. The canyon was spectacular. The width is probably 20-100 feet most of the way. There is an ancient aqueduct carved into the edge of the canyon walls, similar to what we saw at Masada. Herod, who built Masada, was related to the Nabateans who built Petra. They knew that the water needed to be captured in aqueduct channels in the walls before it touched the sand.
The walls are shades of red, yellow and orange – really striking. Most of the ground has been paved for several thousand years. We reached the Treasury building – the first great building of Petra – in about 40 minutes. The “buildings” are primarily large facades cut into the rock. Inside, there are large square rooms, sometimes connected to other rooms, but not usually going very deep into the mountain.
At the Treasury, the valley intersects another, wider valley. Going to the right, there are many other impressive buildings cut into the rock walls. The valley then opens up and moves to the left, where there is a large amphitheatre cut into the walls, followed by a large temple area (perhaps 10,000 square feet of marble floors) surrounded by large columns. The street was colonnaded in the Roman style. There are various temples and high places where they performed various sacrifices.
All along the way, there were Bedouin street vendors and little 5-8 year old children selling various wares – and sometimes just colorful rocks that they found. All of the Bedouins spoke excellent English, including the raggedy little kids. The little kids would say things like, “I have a business proposition for you.” Many of the Bedouin girls and women would invite us for Bedouin tea. The most interesting items they were selling were various oil lamps, coins and other items supposedly found by the Bedouins in the area. Some were authentic and some were good fakes – others were bad fakes. We paid a few Jordanian Dinars for an oil lamp and Roman and Nabatean coins that looked much more authentic – they looked like old corroded, partially damaged coins that had been dug up. I really like the Roman coin, because it has the image and name of Caesar and reminded me of the question that Jesus answered about giving to Caesar or giving to God. The oil lamp has Nabatean images on it.
In the broader part of the valley, there are many, many donkeys and camels (the camels don’t go up the steps) and Bedouins selling rides across the sandy terrain and up the 800 steps to the Monastery. By the way, the 800 steps are primarily grooves cut into the rock walls and trail and some of them take more than a “step” to navigate. We were warned not to take the donkey ride to the top, because many injuries occur. Nevertheless, there are many people who would not make the climb without the donkey ride. I had to push away one aggressive donkey that tried to pin me against the rock wall.
We climbed the steps, greeting various child vendors along the way. We finally reached the Monastery about 110 minutes after we started into Petra, and about 40 minutes after we started the climb up the steps. The Monastery was apparently recently used in the filming of the newest Transformers movie. We climbed up into the cavern and took many photos. We then hiked further up the mountain to get the views of the “Grand Canyon” behind it. The canyon was beautiful. According to the signs, we should have been able to see to the Negev desert in Israel from there, but the cloud cover in the distance prevented us from seeing too far. After resting a while, we began our descent back down the mountain. On the way back, we stopped often to explore caves and the structures of Petra.
On the way up, the child vendors (some of whom were quite cute), would use a line like, “will you promise to buy something on the way back down?” We obviously didn’t promise anything, but on the way down, the kids would say, “you promised.” Others would say, “I haven’t had a sale in three days and I need to make a deal.” American sales professionals should probably come to Petra to study Bedouin sales techniques.
We were thankful that we hiked to the top in the morning, before the heat was too intense. On the way out, we observed many tour groups with people who were ill-equipped to climb anything as they wondered into Petra in the heat of the day.
Several interesting things: there is great cell phone reception in Petra – which is hard to believe. There must be several transmission stations, because the Bedouins didn’t seem to have any trouble using their cell phones and we even heard an American talking about a business deal on his iphone. Several of the buildings were turned into churches as the early church saw people come to Christ in this area. One of the churches had a baptismal along the main street so that the declaration of faith would be very public. This is the second city we saw on this trip (the first was Bet Shean) where a pagan city became predominantly Christian before all of the people disappeared. The people apparently disappeared from Petra because the trade routes changed business dried up.
After hiking uphill out of Petra, we were drenched in sweat – every piece of clothing on our bodies was soaked – we stopped at the Movenpick Hotel next to the entrance in order to have Movenpick ice cream. We are now back at the hotel, showered and recovering from the long hike. As I write, Miles is sound asleep.
Our car almost didn’t make it back up the hill from Petra to the hotel. The transmission is shot and doesn’t shift on its own. We were manually shifting, but even at that it doesn’t go uphill well in low gear. Once it gets up speed on a straight away it is fine. We are praying that we make it to the Amman Airport Avis office.
We will enjoy a quiet evening at the Marriott and then drive to Amman in the morning. We will hopefully meet up with the Kohls by noon or so. Thank you again for praying for us.
Tim and Miles
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