A Crusade to Petra - A Visit to the Rose Red Ruins of the Ancient City

Years ago when I was in high school, I received a postcard from a summer camp friend that showed a massive building facade carved into the side of a mountain.  I immediately recognized it as the resting place of the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, which had been released a few years before.  I wondered why my friend went on vacation to see a movie set.  Okay, I was pretty ignorant back then, and had never heard of Petra.  Once I learned that the facade was really the Treasury building for this ancient city, my interest was piqued.  I made it my mission to see Petra someday.

This rocky area of Jordan had likely been occupied since early Biblical times by the Edomites.  But most of what we know about Petra began around 312 B.C. when Arabic nomads known as the Nabateans conquered the area.  Petra became a major stop for the Spice Road, and the inhabitants prospered through control of this trade.  The Nabateans were responsible for most of the incredible monuments carved into the sandstone rocks.  However, the Romans eventually conquered the Nabateans in 106 AD and added some of their typical free-standing Roman buildings.  Eventually, control passed to the Byzantines who subsequently built several Christian churches.  With their subsequent fall to the Islamic Conquest in the 8th century and the decline of the trade caravans, Petra ceased to exist as a major city.  Eventually, it became lost to the Western historical record for a thousand years.  In 1812, a Swiss explorer named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, rediscovered Petra for the rest of the world.  He had to disguise himself as a sheikh as non-Muslims were prohibited from entering the area.  At that time, Petra was occupied by Bedouins who resided there until the 1960's when the Jordanian government relocated them all to a nearby town.

Just in case I didn't emphasis it in my previous entries, it has been freezing here.  Although Petra opens at 6 AM, Bashar recommended we hold off on starting until around 9 AM so the air could warm up a bit.  Even then, it was still freezing because deserts don't have trees to block huge blasts of cold air.  Conveniently, the ticket office for Petra was directly across the street from our hotel.  We hired a local guide who had graduated from tourism school only a few months before.  He seemed like a nice guy, but I could tell he was still inexperienced and reticent.  He told us that since it is the off season for tourism, he only guides one tour a week.  

Included in the cost of the entry ticket is a horseback ride to the beginning of the site.  We had heard warnings that the people who handle the horses will hassle you pretty hard for tips of 10-15 JD (~ $20).  We figured we needed the exercise, so we decided to walk.  Besides, I'm pretty cheap.  This ended up being the coldest part of the day as we were hammered by freezing crosswinds.

The 1 km walk to the Al-Siq can be traversed by horse or foot.

Four obelisks adorn this tomb.

The wind died down once we reached the shelter of the Al-Siq, a narrow canyon flanked by cliff walls up to 650 feet high.  Some parts of the pathway still remain paved with stones dating back to the Romans.  It has taken thousands of years for water to chisel this canyon out of the mountain.

Irrigation canals were carved into the rock
walls to store and carry rainwater to the city.

 A flash flood in the Al-Siq killed 12 French tourists in 1963.
Several dams have since been built to divert the water away.

Unfortunately, this same effect has slowly eroded several of the monuments and statues within the Al-Siq.

Many shrines have been carved into the rock walls...

...so that the Nabateans could worship idols of their gods.

People toes

Camel toes

We dodged several horse-drawn carriages ferrying older tourists.  We were shocked to see one horse suddenly collapse and lay motionless.  Several tense minutes passed in which we were sure it was dead.   Finally, the horse got up and was retired for the day.  I'm no veterinarian so I couldn't tell how well those animals were kept.  But, I was glad that we decided to walk.

One more victim for the glue factory

As we approached the end of the 2 km long Al-Siq, we caught a glimpse of a statue peeking around the edges of the canyon's walls.

We emerged into a clearing with the enormous facade of the Treasury building towering over us.  With the rays of the morning sun illuminating the rose-colored sandstone, the Treasury has become the quintessential structure that people identify with Petra.

Inexplicably, we also noticed some visitors already leaving as we were arriving.  I suspect that some people only visit the Treasury building and then leave without seeing the remainder of the large city.  What a waste coming all the way to this exotic location.

Our guide told us that the name is a misnomer--no treasures were stored there.  There was an ancient myth that the Exodus pharaoh chased Moses and the Israelites all the way here.  Encumbered by his vast wealth, he then stored it in the giant urn carved at the top of the building.  Of course, historically this couldn't have happened.  But it didn't stop Bedouins from shooting the urn hoping that gold would spill out.  Instead, the building was likely used as a tomb, possibly for a Nabatean king.  In the past few years, excavations were carried out discovering several more rooms below the structure, but these are inaccessible due to a covered grate.  The decorations on this building demonstrate the many influences that other cultures had on the Nabateans.

In the center is a badly eroded statue of the Egyptian goddess Isis.

The two equestrian statues at the bottom of the Treasury represent the mythical
Graeco-Roman twins, Castor and Pollux, the patron gods of sailors and travelers.

After enjoying a warm tea and taking the obligatory pictures of the Treasury, we continued on towards the rest of the city.  We passed a large open-air theater initially built by the Nabateans and improved by the Romans.

Although the performances may be in 3D, this theater still has no IMAX compatibility.

The site is teeming with smaller caves that were used as tombs in ancient times.

The interior of one of the caves

The reason that Jordan lost the Six Day War against Israel
was that their army still fought with spears and shields. 

These more ornately-carved structures have been labelled as 'Royal Tombs.'

However, there is no evidence that there were used specifically by kings.

We eventually arrived at a long colonnaded street that dated to the Roman occupation.  Sadly, most of it is in complete ruins.  Paving stones still cover a good portion of the road, but most of the columns have fully collapsed and lay to the side.  More excavation and reconstruction are needed to restore it to the semblance of the structure it once was.

Remaining columns

Remnants of the Roman road

A bench built from extra stones.  It didn't look very stable.

It's tough to guard an entryway
when there are no walls.

Ruins of 'The Great Temple' that has been excavated by Brown University.

On a hill overlooking the colonnaded street are the excavated ruins of Byzantine era churches.  Their mosaic floors are still well preserved and beautiful works of art.  We reached the end of the colonnaded street where we saw the Qasr Al-Bint, a three-roomed temple dedicated to the chief Nabatean god Dushara.  Although it was damaged by an earthquake in 363 AD, it is the only free-standing stone building still remaining in the city.

The Qasr Al-Bint

Amazingly, the arch at the entryway still
stands, albeit it looks like a gentle zephyr
could cause it to collapse.

At that point, we ditched our guide and decided to do the hike to the Al Deir which is also dubbed the 'Monastery' for some unknown reason.  The path comprises 800 steps that wind up the mountain.

The pathway to the Monastery...

...wound up the windy canyon.

The majority of tourists to Petra tend to forego this journey.  A small handful (mainly older folks) hire donkeys to carry them up.  The rest of the people who made the trek tended to be younger and in decent shape.  That being said, it wasn't really difficult, just somewhat tedious.  At the top it was sometimes worse because of the occasional wind-tunnel effect.  Harsh sand and small pebbles were whipped up leading to an unwanted exfoliating facial.

As we rounded a corner at the top of the mountain, an enormous structure greeted us.  Although not as ornately carved or decorated as the Treasury, the Monastery’s dwarfs it in sheer size.  The doorway alone stands 8 meters high.  We ended up hiking further up the mountain to get a better vantage point to view and photograph the massive structure.  Altogether, it took less than 2 hours to make the round trip to see the Monastery.

The locals were smart enough to use donkeys.

It would have been nice if the Nabateans had built the Monastery 800 steps closer to the rest of the city.

Further up the mountain is an immense room
with a small shrine sullied with modern graffiti.

A restaurant lies empty on top of the mountain.
Location, location, location.

Along the way down, some of the locals manned stands selling cheap trinkets.  At least they had the sense to wait until we were heading back down the mountain before they asked us to view their wares.  The Bedouins, for the most part, were polite.  They didn't harass us too badly like we had expected.  Usually, a simple 'no thanks' was all it took and they left us alone.  Several of them also had their children with them.  The Wife noticed a cute little boy and girl.  She gave the boy an apple and motioned him to share with his younger sister.  He shook his head 'no'.  So when the little girl came over, The Wife tried to hand her a bag of potato chips.  Seeing the superiority of the salty snack, the boy handed the apple to his sister and grabbed the chips.

It's good to see that all cultures appreciate junk food over healthy snacks.

This house comes with a two car garage.

We finished up with the rest of the excavated areas at Petra.  Astonishingly, experts believe that only 15% of the site has been excavated so far.  The whole experience at Petra took a total of about 6 hours.  Did we see every nook and cranny there?  Probably not, but we were satisfied that we got our fill of this exotic location.  Sadly though, we never did find the room containing the Holy Grail.  It's probably all for the best because I’m sure that I would have chosen...poorly.

Not Tickled About Being Pickled - Wading in the Dead Sea and the Jordan River

In the weeks proceeding our trip, I was obsessed with making banchan--Korean side dishes such as kimchi.  I tried to pickle everything I could get my hands on--cucumbers, daikons, cabbages, eggplants, garlic, etc.  I was getting out of control.  The neighbor's dog wisely kept his distance from me.  I dumped every vegetable I had into a big bowl of salt water in preparation to be pickled.  When the process was complete, I found, to my dismay, that everything was inedible.  As I bit into the pickles, I couldn't imagine that anything could be more salty.  Unfortunately, I would be proven wrong today when it would be my turn to be human banchan in the Dead Sea.

We woke up early and hit the gym for a morning run on the treadmill.  I set the machine to the turtlesque speed that I had been doing over the past few months.  A few minutes into the run I thought I was killing it.  A day's rest on the plane must have invigorated me.  My legs had never felt that energetic and relaxed while running at that rate on the treadmill.  Then I realized the reading was in kilometers not miles.  Damn metric system!  In actuality, I was doing far worse than my usual routine.

After the feeble attempt at exercise, we adorned our fleece coats for the short walk to the Dead Sea.  When we got there the attendant told us the beach was closed because the water was too hazardous.  There's no way that I'm traveling halfway around the world and not getting in that water.

Technically, we were just going to float, not swim.

The flag looks white to me.

We pressed on and waded into a calm, shallow area.  People say that nothing lives in the Dead Sea because of the high salt content.  I say that it's because the water is freezing cold.  What were we thinking going in the winter time?  We were tempted to go back and grab our wetsuits from our luggage.  We floated for only 5-10 minutes (in fact, sinking is virtually impossible).  Then the burning started to get bad.  You are supposed to lay on your back in the Dead Sea as the high salt content burns every mucosal surface.  Yes, EVERY mucosal surface.  I dunked my head in just to see how bad it felt.  Yep, it hurt momentarily.  However, the real problem was the pain in the backside which was unrelenting until I left the water.

Ouch! It Burns!

The sea bottom is littered with what I first thought were
rocks, but were actually huge salt accumulations.

This guy stole my wetsuit idea!  I really wasn't exaggerating when I said it was cold.  This guy is in the HEATED pool.

After our quick dip, we ate a late breakfast.  The buffet was well stocked with an eclectic variety of items that were mainly very good.  However, two items were particularly disturbing--beef bacon (yuck) and chicken sausage (even more yuck).  Most of the world kicks our ass when it comes to lunch, dinner, and dessert.  But, North America owns breakfast.   Nothing beats a heaping plate of greasy PORK bacon or PORK sausage to get your day started.  The two hours of stomach cramps that follows is, as they say in Louisiana, lagniappe.

Bashar then drove us 10 minutes away to Bethany Beyond Jordan.  For quite awhile, I have been contemplating a conversion to Christianity.  Maybe it was all those years of Christian private schools, maybe it was the desire to lead a more fulfilling life for my children, or maybe it was because I just wanted to 'Tebow' without suffering the Wrath of God.  Whatever the reason, it was time.  What better place to make it official than the site where Jesus was baptized.

We had arranged in advance for a priest to take us through the ceremony.  As there are few Protestants or even Catholics in Jordan, we got a Greek Orthodox priest, Reverend Father Georges to ordain us into his church.  Great, now we will have to stand up the whole time during service.  He made sure that we understood that we would have to follow the tenets of Christianity from now on.  I assured him that I had no future plans to covet my neighbor's wife (sure she seems like a nice lady, but she's gotta be pushing 70 years of age).

The Baptism pool is an offshoot of the Jordan River filled with water so muddy that it's close to being quicksand.

We were instructed to disrobe completely and wear only a really thin Baptism gown.  It was still no warmer than 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside.  We walked into the frigid water and were led through the Baptism ceremony.  I could feel a sense of warmth and serenity passing through my frozen body.  Was it the cleansing of my sins?  Was it The Holy Spirit coursing through my bones?  Or was it just hypothermia?

I'm pretty sure Jesus was smart enough...

 ...to get baptized during the summer months.

"You may dunk your head in the water now," said the Reverend Father.  "Ummm...Do I really have to?" I whined.

After the ceremony, we said our goodbyes to the Reverend Father.  As we were wiping the mud off of our feet and massaging our legs to get the sensation back, Bashar joked, "You should have converted to Islam instead.  You would have been much warmer".  We left the Baptism site with dirty bodies but clean souls.

We explored the rest of the site which included the ruins of old Byzantine churches that dated back to the 6th or 7th century A.D.  There is not much left except for some old floor tiles and a stone stairwell down to the place in the river where Jesus was thought to have been baptized.

The remnants of the Church of John the Baptist overlook Jesus' baptism site.

This cat shadowed us everywhere.  I suspect 
that he's a Mossad agent making sure
we don't cross the river to the Israeli side.

A mosaic depiction of the ruins.

A modern church arises over the "Jungle of the Jordan." 

We next stopped off at an obligatory touristy souvenir store.  Neither one of us was planning on wasting any money.  We were just going to look around briefly to be polite.  Unfortunately, we have a weakness for colorful and sparkly things.  Soon enough, we were haggling over a couple of items.  Jordan is known for their intricate mosaic tiles that decorate their church floors and beauty products made from Dead Sea mud.  So what did we buy?  A hand-painted ostrich egg.  What Jordan has to do with ostriches?  I don't have a clue.  The egg is pretty cool though, albeit expensive and absolutely useless.  Salespeople 1: Us 0

We departed for the three hour drive to Petra.  The main road was too dangerous because of snow; so we had to take a rocky, gravel-strewn backroad that snaked through the mountains.  Some of the drop offs on the side of the road are several hundreds of feet down, and there are no guardrails.  Also, the endless number of hills and dips in the road made the car bounce up and down like we were riding a @&$#! camel.  I hate @&$#! camels.

The land was desolate with miles and miles of endless sand and rocks.

Nary was there another car or settlement around.  Even in this remote landscape, an occasional Bedouin or a pack of grazing camels or sheep would sometimes appear out of nowhere in the distance.  In this arid desert, water can be scarce.  We stopped at a cistern carved into a mountain that is used to store water.

Entrance to the cistern

You have to be really thirsty to drink this water.

Eventually, we arrived at a place known as 'Little Petra'.  Centuries ago, it was a rest stop for the trade caravans right before they made it to Petra itself.  There wasn't much to the place.  There was a narrow canyon with a couple of rooms and decorations carved into the rocks.  The place was free and it was serene (we had to share it with only a handful of tourists).  It was so quiet that we could hear the muffled steps of our shoes in the sand.  It was a good warm-up for Petra tomorrow.

We then checked into the Movenpick Hotel right across the street from the entrance to Petra.  Someone must have confused our hotel for the Piccadilly Cafe because there were a lot of elderly people in the lobby at 5 PM.

The hotel courtyard from above.

A popular tourist item are bottles with designs made from colored.

We ate dinner at the fancy "romantic" restaurant in the hotel.

The restaurant overlooks the hotel's central courtyard.  It would be great for
people-watching location but all of the elderly folks had already gone to bed.

The hotel advertises it as being the highest-rated restaurant in all of Jordan--and the good food backs up that claim.  However, the elevator music of Lionel Ritchie and Bryan Adams songs were pretty cheesy.  It was even more lame that I knew all their lyrics.

 Assorted bread with compound butters

Amuse bouche of falafel stuffed with lamb

Mediterranean seafood soup

Eggplant stuffed with peppers, artichokes, zucchini, and herbs

Al Iwan-style lamb loin

Despite all of the tempting items on the menu, The Wife inexplicably ordered pasta.

The weather forecast predicted even colder weather the next day.  Therefore, we enjoyed the comforts of our warm hotel room that evening, knowing that we were gonna go from being pickles to popsicles in the morning.

Beginning Our Journey to Egypt and Jordan

Last year, several of our friends, family members, and colleagues questioned our decision to travel to India.  "You're stupid to go there.  It's too hot.  It's too dirty." they said.  When we considered visiting Egypt in 2012, they again raised suspicion about our intelligence.

For the past decade, Egypt had been one of the safest places to travel in the Middle East.  The government had suppressed the radical and militant organizations which had been responsible for horrendous terrorist atrocities in the 1990's.  While their Libyan and Sudanese neighbors had been condemned by the international community, Egypt had been a popular vacationing spot for pasty-white Brits and Russians.  It would have been smart to go at that time.  Nope.  We decided to wait until they had a revolution, riots in the capital, an unpopular military-controlled transition government, increased support for the polarizing Muslim Brotherhood, massacres of Coptic Christians and soccer fans, shark attacks at their beach resorts, and a recent spate of kidnappings in the Sinai by disenchanted Bedouins.  And it might even get worse.  No time in its 5000 year written history has Egypt ever been a democracy.  Even if the elections proceed smoothly as planned this summer, they will have years of growing pains to make it work.  Therefore, we decided that our vacation destination this year would be Egypt just in case the country took a turn for the worse.  Plus, I don't want to go to India again.  It's too hot and dirty.

So The Wife and I thoroughly researched the country's history.  Bob Brier's audiobook lectures on ancient Egypt for The Teaching Company were really informative.  We watched every video we could find about Egypt--the 2006 BBC series, 3D IMAX films about pyramids and mummies, every documentary on the Discovery or History Channel on Egypt (they all have Zahi Hawass mugging for the camera), The Mummy 1 and 2, and even Scooby-Doo in Where's My Mummy?.

We also got our open water certification in anticipation of scuba diving in Sharm El-Sheikh.  Somewhere along the way, we tacked on a couple of days in Jordan to visit the Dead Sea and Petra.  After thoroughly researching exactly where and when we wanted to go, we contacted a tour company called Lady Egypt.  Their representative, Amanda Whittome, was very helpful in tweaking our itinerary and making all the reservations.  Then we waited nervously for two months as the news channels continued to portray Egypt in a negative light.  Finally, the departure day arrived and we were off.

Our journey started off with some disappointments.  On the way over, we had a four hour layover in Paris.  The Wife had been looking forward to hitting up the Lauduree store at the Charles De Gaulle airport for some French macaroons.  We haven't had any since our last visit to France nine years ago as they are almost impossible to find in our area of the U.S.  Our flight was departing from terminal A which is probably the crappy hub since it housed mainly dinky airlines.  A quick survey of the shops came up empty for macaroons.  Fine, we still had two hours, we'll try a different terminal.  That's where the problem arose.  For some inexplicable reason, travel is restricted between different terminals.  Once you get to your terminal, you're stuck there.  What an unbelievably poor design for such a major airport.  The Wife was pissed.  What a big letdown.

Despite the horrible reviews that Royal Jordanian Airlines have received online, we had decided to use them for our last leg of our itinerary.  This was supposed to have gotten us in 1.5 hours earlier than the European carriers.  However, the flight ended up being delayed an hour.  The airline was actually fine with good English-speaking service.  The plane was only half-full, so we had room to spread out.

Once we landed, I sauntered off the plane in my T-shirt expected a blast of nice warm air.  Instead, I got a 41 degree Fahrenheit drizzle.  WTF!  We had expected hot, sunny weather in Jordan.  After all, it's a freakin' desert.  Apparently, we hadn't  done enough of our homework.  It does get cold in the winter, and they were experiencing a particularly unusual cold spell for this time of year.

We met with our driver Bashar from Desert Horizons Tour Company, and he drove us to our hotel at the Dead Sea.  Along the way, we passed a couple of embankments piled high with several inches of snow.  We were pleased to see that the road was smooth and well maintained.  Plus there was minimal traffic or camels to slow us down.  Bashar told us that tourism has been down significantly in Jordan because of the events in the Middle East.  Although Jordan has been a political eye of the hurricane that has swept through their neighbors in Syria and Iraq, foreigners have tended to lump them in with those other countries and stayed away.

During our car ride, I had a chance to interrogate Bashar.  He has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, usually as a tour guide.  Oddly enough, Israel and the West Bank are some of the few places where he has not traveled.  Those places can literally be seen across the Jordan River.  In fact, we could see lights from the city of Jericho penetrating through the fog.  We learned that Bashar's father originally came from Palestine, so we weren't too surprised to hear that he's not a huge fan of the Israeli government. However, he was still very diplomatic about this topic and not hateful against any individuals in generally.

What surprised me was that he is actually somewhat supportive of Bashar al-Assad, the ruler of Syria.  Prior to leaving for our trip, all I heard was news on CNN about street violence and civilian deaths in Syria.  I just assumed that it was the case of another authoritarian government trying to suppress its democracy-loving people.  Our guide whose mother hails from Syria explained that the situation is not that simple.  The country has so many different factions (Sunni's vs Shiites, Turks vs Kurds, Arab tribe A vs Arab tribe B, etc) that it has taken a strong centralized government to prevent outright anarchy and civil war.  While he admits that the current ruler of Syria has done some heinous things (most obviously using tanks against his own people), our guide gave him the lukewarm endorsement, "At least he is better than his father."

We eventually arrived at our hotel the Kempinski Ishtar Dead Sea.

Our hotel room

Hooray for the bidet!  I still don't
know how to use those things.

With few dining options outside the hotel, we ate at their Thai restaurant.  The food was pricey and Westernized, but still very good.

Krupuk (shrimp chips) with hot, spicy, and sour dipping sauces

Fish tempura amuse bouche

Mixed seafood in yellow curry

Chicken with green curry

After dinner, We toured the expansive grounds of the hotel. It's a really a spacious, well-kept property with a modern-style decor.

There are no shortages of fountains or pools at the Kempinski.

View of the Dead Sea from the hotel

There are rooms that open up to lounging areas and swimming pools overlooking the Dead Sea.  It would seem like a really relaxing place to bring the kids in the summertime.  Unfortunately, we were there at the wrong time of year.  It was way too cold to spend any appreciable time outdoors.  That night, I collapsed in bed fearing that we had made a stupid decision coming to the Middle East.

Wrong season!  The place seemed dead.  We barely saw any other guests that night at the resort.

The hotel's pools were beautiful at night.  The air was too cold to even consider taking a swim.