Petra has been a much anticipated highlight of this trip, much as the Valley of the Kings was. It’s something almost everyone has heard of & the “Treasury” is an iconic photograph much as is King Tut’s golden headdres. Salah lives in Petra & has the pride of a local in his hometown & a definite possessiveness in the remarkable culture that produced Petra.

The Nabateans were an ancient Arabic-speaking people who lived in the Dead Sea region in the 4th-3rd centuries BC. Their history is long & interesting & they eventually occupied the area from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. They emerged as a distinct civilization & trading entity, centering their kingdom around a trading network that brought them wealth & influence. Pliny the Elder identified Petra as the center of their caravan trading & the capital of their Kingdom. Enclosed by towering rocks & watered by a perennial stream, Petra not only had the advantages of a fortress but controlled the main commercial routes which passed through the area. The Nabateans were master stonemasons & artisans & zenith of their civilization at Petra was in the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. (Didn’t I promise ‘fewer history lessons’ last trip? NSL!)

If you know anything about Petra you know that access is through a narrow (very narrow) “canyon”, called the Siq. The Nabateans could secure their community simply by blocking the near end of the Siq with rocks; and, trust me, there was NO shortage of rocks! We had no choice but to hire one of the golf carts through the 2km+ Siq & even though we cringed at the 25 dinar (USD $74) price of a round trip, we gulped & sprang for it. But when our inbound driver took us slowly through with photo stops & our return driver brought us back at giggle-producing breakneck speed that still took nearly eight minutes, we realized it had been a bargain.

We erupted from the end of the long, relatively quiet Siq into a scene of absolute bedlam; camels grumbling & roaring, venders hawking their wares insistently (including camel rides, & photos), & the babble of people talking in a multitude of languages. The Treasury hit our eyes as shockingly beautiful as as any temple we’d seen in Egypt or any Greek temple either. Given the influence of both Greeks & Romans upon the Natabean psyche, it’s no wonder it looked so reminiscent of other structures of that era. We had plenty of time to admire it since Salah was walking the Siq with those of our group that did not hire golf carts. He must have given them exhaustive explanations because we had plenty of time to be concerned that they had gone on without our knowing it, & work ourselves into a minor frenzy before our earpieces started crackling, we heard Sal’s voice, & they finally emerged from the Siq.

Eventually the group appeared, bathroom breaks were accomplished, & we exited through another, smaller Siq, stage right, after a thorough description of all the details on the “Treasury”, which isn’t a treasury at all, but a tomb. The next couple of hours were utterly amazing & I don’t believe anyone was aware that Petra was so large a community or so beautifully carved & decorated as it is. It is an extraordinary place & I recommend it most highly to anyone interested in antiquities or archeology. I made it the entire way, even climbing all the way up the hundred or more stairs to the Church of the Urn, even though Sal had expressed his doubts.

From Petra we drove back to our hotel & returned to our twin beds room only to hear the deafening sound of a jack hammer. I called the front desk to ask, “What is that noise & how long is it going to last?!”(two more hours)….& remind them that we were supposed to inquire about switching to a king room. They had one available. I asked Larry to check to be certain it had a balcony & slider/fresh air from outside since everyone who did not was stifling. It did & (unbeknownst to me) a bathtub besides. Larry began walking our wheeled luggage down to the new room as fast as I could pack it &, by the time I took the last bundle, Larry was just adjusting the temperature of the water in my bath! I had a wonderful – & very hot – bath to soothe my knee, & back, & feet. (Everybody complained of sore feet after our day traipsing the length of Petra & back). I was pretty pleased with myself for making it the entire way. My next goal would be proving that Salah was wrong when he said I wouldn’t be able to do the 2 km walk into Jerash & back. We’ll see about that! It’s our last stop, our last hurrah, & the ending to our Mideast Adventure. (Betcha . . . !)