I woke up pretty early like most days and made sure to pack all my gear before going downstairs as we were going to leave the hotel at 7 to be at Petra by 7:30am. Breakfast was luckily at 6:30am so we went down a little early and were able to eat right away. At this point I was getting pretty tired of the usual hummus, pita, hard boiled egg, etc and had a couple bowls of cereal and what looked like cream of wheat or really runny oatmeal. Either way it wasn’t that exciting.
We left for Petra pretty close to 7am and I was really excited!! We walked to the visitors center, grabbed some paper maps and looked at the big map, used the restroom, and headed down into the Siq. We walked for quite some time taking pictures and listening to our tour guide Hamdat (I think it was). He was very knowledgeable and had studied to become a structural engineer. I asked if he built a model of the water pipelines but I don’t think he understood what I was asking.
And there we were. Through the rock formation you could see the treasury in all its glory and man it truly is a wonder of the world!! Pictures don’t do this place justice and I am glad that I watched this BBC Documentary with my dad before visiting the site. One interesting fact is that they built the structure from the top down so the only evidence of a perch is towards the outside of the structure. If you like you can read about Petra here.
We spent a good while at the Treasury and I hope that I got some good shots although it was partially in shade which I didn’t like. After we left the Treasury we continued further down until we reached the bottom of the Monastery and where Hamdat left us. He suggested taking a donkey to the summit and walking down which we did for 10 JOD. By this time I was just about tapped for money so I had to borrow some from Pat. Man am I glad we did that because it was starting to get hot. The ascent was 800 stairs and it felt like the donkey got us there in no time.
At the very top there was a nice area that was shaded and you could purchase drinks which was nice. We spent a couple of minutes cooling off then we headed back quickly to get more pictures of the Treasury. By the time we got down the mountain I was feeling a bit dehydrated and I needed to rest for a bit. We grabbed some water, cooled off, and took a good rest before heading to the Treasury.
By the time we got more water and headed back to the Treasury it was a mad house. There were so many people around it was hard to get a clean shot. I put on my 10 stop ND filter and hoped for the best but I’m not sure I got anything usable. Guess we’ll have to see once I work on the pics.
We stayed there for about 30-45 minutes then headed back to the visitors center. We met up with the Chinese couple we had been touring with and looked at the artifacts in the museum before heading back to the hotel.
We chilled for a couple of hours, grabbed some dinner, and headed back to Petra to see it by night. By then it was much cooler and I thought I would need a jacket which I didn’t. We walked down through the Siq to the Treasury and heard a flute performance and light show which was not spectacular but it was nice not only because of the whether but also because there wasn’t as many people. This is something I will never forgot for the rest of my life…even though I might forgot the details 🙂
I went to sleep that night pretty contented and grateful.