Travels and Travails

6 July

Petra. Need I say more? It’s a world class site, probably best known right now for having been in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But of course, that reflects our modern obsession with movies. The Nabateans controlled this strategic spot and thus the trade routes that went across the desert. Then the Romans took over, as they so often did. With countless coves carved into the very living rock, the site is enormous and has some of the most amazing canyons, rock carvings, and cave dwellings I’ve ever seen.

I got up at 6am and got ready. I went down stairs at 6:45 wanting the 7 transport to Petra. But no one was there. I began to doubt the guy who had driven me up here (whose name I don’t remember but I started think of him as Guy). Guy’s brother ran the hotel and he came downstairs at 7:15 and said, ‘yes, yes, you want to go to Petra’. I waited a while, rather impatiently as the minutes dragged well past 7:30 when Guy’s white and red Nissan pickup showed up. I jumped in and away we went. As we neared the site, the number of tourist gift shops, etc. increased dramatically. Guy pointed to one and said he would meet me there at 6pm. Then he dropped me off at the Petra gate and away he went.

Entrance to Petra is a bit hefty at 21 dinars, but it is a very big place and I would spend the whole day there, so I got my ticket and entered through the metal detectors that are so common these days. The guards were mostly concerned with the tickets, though, because you can buy a multi-day ticket and they don't want you selling them to someone else. Thus, you have to sign the ticket, then show your passport and have your signature checked every day. It’s a good deal to get a multi-day ticket if you want to stay longer and everyone says you can’t see all of Petra in a day, but I suspected I could see enough in one day to have my fill of the heat, so I got the single ticket and wasn’t hassled at the gate at all.

The approach to the site is lengthy. I knew there was a long canyon to walk down but before that is a long gravel road. Along the side are ancient carved rock faces making increasingly more impressive architectural facades. But these would be nothing compared to those farther down the canyon. Nevertheless, they were impressive already. I noted three different groups of people who went in approximately the same time I did and saw that we continually shifted places as we walked down the road to the site. One group would stop to take pictures, so another would overtake, and so on. There was a couple who may have been American directly ahead of me. The woman was very pale and not wearing much. I suspected she would be heavily sunburned by the end of day. There was also a group of three Spaniards behind me and a few Arabs farther ahead. But the largest groups were the hordes of locals who wanted to offer any or all of us rides on camels/donkeys/horses/carriages.

None of the earlybird tourists took the pricey offers of rides, being fresh in the morning and wanting to walk. We were warned that it was ‘very far’ to the interior and we would not be able to see it all if we didn’t take the offer right now. No one took them up yet. Instead, we continued the shift in position like tortoises in a race, staring at upthrust stone carved into building faces, and snapping pictures of anything and everything down the long, double lane. It was dirt and gravel but split by a built stone wall, low and tight, but modern. Along the path were occasional rock formations with minor carvings or openings like tombs. Very rarely there was a sign that tried to explain what it might be.

After nearly a kilometer, we arrived at the Siq. It is the natural tectonic rift that forms the main entrance to Petra’s valley. It is 1.2 km long and varies from 3 to 16 meters in width. In places, the Nabateans widened the siq and tool marks can still clearly be seen on parts of it. They also built in clever water features, aqueducts if you will. These ran low on both sides of the canyon walls to carry water into the valley proper.

Now this was impressive. Our shifting groups all tried to get photos of the high, narrow canyon, but it is very difficult to capture on film. The bright light streaming from far above caused imbalance in the much darker canyon and washed out half the picture. Plus, the rift was so deep that it was hard to get the whole thing in frame. The walk, though, was downhill and much of it was shaded. It was a pleasant journey indeed. As we descended, the sides of the path grew higher and higher, most impressive in the multicolored rock. It twisted and turned, the floor beneath changing from a kind of concrete in the beginning (undoubtedly modern restoration) to a sandy stone surface and then ancient paving blocks in places. A sign told me that the Romans had repaved the walkway in the first century AD.

And then the siq opened suddenly. Through the narrow crack, you could just see the façade that everyone comes to see. It was al-Khazneh, the treasury that most now associate with Indiana finding the Holy Grail. Of course, it has nothing to do with the Grail and the interior is actually very small, but when has truth stopped people’s imaginations? It was a most stunning sight. Yet surrounding it, and this would be the thing I noticed so often at Petra in general, were countless booths selling tacky knick-knacks and overpriced soda. And of course, there were camels, horses, donkeys and carriages along with their conductors constantly asking everyone if they wanted a ride. “It is three kilometers into the main site. Surely you do not want to walk that!” The plethora of sales booths and sales tactics throughout the site, unfortunately, made this somewhat more of a Disney-fied experience than a dignified one.

I ignored the hawkers and went to sit near the Khazneh. I got many photos and I was early enough that there were not tons of people around. It was such an impessive construction (carving really) that it wasn’t too hard to fade the sales booths into the background of my m ind and just imagine the past. Think of how much effort it would take to have created this massive, engaged facade!

Eventually I pulled my eyes and mind away from the Khazneh and walked on, dancing around donkey dung, past the hewn theater (surrounded by tacky booths) and to the colonnaded street (itself a line of tacky booths). Mostly I kept pace with the American couple and the Spaniards. Through the Temenos gateway, I had trouble finding my next goal, the path up to the monastery, ad’Deir. The map confused me. It said there was a museum, but I only found two restaurants and a wadi crossroads. The wadis were on the map and it looked like I needed to be on the other side of the crossing. Finally I figured it out. On the other side of the restaurant, I spied an almost hidden sign that said ‘museum’. So I went in.

It was a small place, nothing spectacular, but there were some interesting pieces. I learned that Brown University had done much recent work at Petra and I some were even now working on mapping the paving of the colonnaded street, stone for stone. The guide book said there were stairs just beyond the museum, but I saw none. There was only a sign that read, ‘venturing beyond this point without a guide is dangerous’. Probably a ruse to make people want to hire guides.

I decided this was the way to go. [to be continued...]

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