Located in the far south of Jordan, Aqaba occupies a most important place as it is the country’s only seaport.
As our tour bus to Petra drove through Aqaba heading across the desert to Petra, I was struck with how different my first impression of Jordan was as compared to Egypt. Jordan or at least what we saw was cleaner and more modern. However, Jordan is a poor country. They have no oil and are very limited in natural resources.
So off we drove the 50 miles to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Petra, one of the most enigmatic places in the Middle East. Petra is an ancient city initially built and settled by the Nabataeans. This society was a Greek, Egyptian, and Semitic hybrid. Petra, their 4th century BC capital was later absorbed into the Roman Empire. All this explains the wide range of architecture design of their structures and monuments.
The tour that I was apart of begins with a walk into the city through a narrow gorge called the Sig. This stunning natural canyon winds through the towering rock. As you walk you see remains of water channels, carvings, and representations of Nabataean gods.
It was about at this point that I luckily met up with one of our lecturers on the ship. His name is Piotr Wesolowski, he is a travel writer and an expert on Petra. During his first lecture he mentioned a hike through Petra that went where few tourists rarely go, so of course I was intrigued. I approached him and asked if he would mind if I joined him. He didn’t, so I happily left the large slow-moving group and a guide who was hard to understand to hike at a good pace with my private guide who was mildly hard to understand (Polish accent) We had ourselves an amazing day.
Picture of the Treasury
This scene is in an Indiana Jones movie.
It is now believed that this theater was carved out by the Nabataeans in the 2nd century BC. It seats around 3,000 spectators.
As we walked on we past a series of fascinating tombs; the Royall Tombs, the Urn Tomb, the Corinthian Tomb and the three-story Palace Tomb.
Peter took this picture, he also assisted me in getting myself up to the threshold.
I slipped as I was descending from this tomb, the rock is very flaky and the one that I was holding onto just fell apart in my hand. I only scrapped my knee but was glad for my “knight in shinning armor”….
Later on in our trek, I fell again as I was trying to get up a ledge. Peter was already at the top. It was just a slip but when I looked down it was slightly scary but out of nowhere appeared a group of Bedouin children who insisted on helping me up. They kept calling, “Madam, Madam grab my hand”. How touching it was to put my hand in a tiny brown hand and pull myself up. Peter was right there and I felt reassured when he became part of the rescue team.
I’m becoming very fond of donkeys and camels.
This entire day had a magical feel about it but when we came upon this Polish mass being said in the Queen’s Tomb we both decided that the planets were in alignment for us. Here’s this Catholic raised American woman hiking in Petra, Jordan with a Polish author who now lives in Canada and we were just in time to see a group of European Pilgrimages practice their faith. I’m sure my Dad was disappointed that we didn’t stay until the end but we were now in a rush.
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