Magnificent Petra, the ‘Rose Red City’
At Petra...
Aqaba, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, April 17 — Petra may be the main reason tourists come to Jordan — it is one of the new Seven Wonders of the World (so named in 2007). I originally thought I would save the $349 ‘optional tour’ charge and not go to Petra. Then I said, ‘You idiot. Go to Petra.’ As you’ll see from the photos, it was worth it. Of the 839 passengers on board, 462 made the trek, and it was a trek. Many Vikings had been there before, so they went on other excursions... still, there were too dam many tourists cluttering up the site. When I got ‘home,’ I started watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which was filmed there... sans tourists. You can check out www.visitpetra.jo.
Some background: We were able to sail to Jordan because it has one coastal city, the port of Aqaba at the northernmost point of the Gulf of Aqaba. ‘Set amid coffee-colored desert hills,’ Aqaba was central to trade between Africa and Asia for thousands of years. If the name rings an historic and cinematic bell, (T. E.) Lawrence of Arabia led the Arab troops, on camels, in the Battle of Aqaba in 1917, driving the Turks from the city.
This photo (above) is not much of a photo, but it shows you how central Aqaba is: On the shoreline, way to the right, those white high rises are in Aqaba, Jordan. Moving left (we’re in Arabia: we read right to left) you see a long line of trees: King Abdullah II’s palace is located there, though he’s usually at home in the capital city, Amman (originally named Philadelphia). Squint and you can make out the next line of white buildings — those are at the southernmost tip of Israel. Glance further to the left — that’s Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
It took about three hours by bus to reach Petra. The landscape is rough, rocky and, for the most part, barren, with a stark beauty you see in parts of the American southwest. But what you wouldn’t see there are the camels wandering off the road or, in one case, down the median strip. Bottom photo: The bus came to a full stop as this herd of goats crossed the road. That new house is, by the way, a mansion by Jordanian standards.
Before we get to Petra, here’s some background on Jordan:
• This region has been inhabited since the Stone Age (75,000 years ago) and ruled by, among others...
• Greeks, Romans, Moors, Crusaders, Ottomans... it’s very complicated.
• After the Great Arab Revolt in 1916, France and the U.K. agreed to ‘divide’ the Middle East. The U.K. got Jordan, along with Palestine and Iraq. France got Lebanon and Syria.
• In 1921 it became the Emirate of Transjordan. That lasted until independence in 1946, when it was called The Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. The ‘trans’ was dropped in 1949. Hashemite is the name of the Jordanian royal family.
• In 1948, Jordan gained control of the West Bank, but lost it to Israel in 1967, at which point, the PLO set up camp in Jordan for the next three years before decamping to Lebanon.
• In 1994, Israel signed a peace treaty with the late King Hussein (who ruled 1952-1999).
• Jordan’s population is 10 million.
• It is 95% Muslim, 5% Greek Orthodox and Catholic.
• Lack of water is a serious problem.
• Jordan has no oil. They are harnessing wind and solar power (unlike Oman).
• One major natural resource is phosphates, mined in the desert.
• Tourism accounts for 14% of the economy. Some of that is ‘medical tourism.’ If you want to come, come in March, April, May or September, October, November. You do NOT want to be here in the summer, when the temperature can hit 120º. In January and February, it snows in the mountains.
• Jordan is known for its skilled workforce. Many people work in Education and Health, or the Army and the police. Women can retire at 55 and men at 60, and there is their equivalent of Social Security.
• Women work and ‘compete in all fields’ though they earn less. Today, girls’ grades are better than boys’. This from our upper-middle-aged male guide, Maazen, who is one of 9 children: all 6 boys and 3 girls are college-educated. The university system is strong and its graduates are ‘desirable’ workers. All students study English and IT.
• Their literacy rate is, our guide said, the highest in the Arab world: 95%. Interestingly, the rate among females aged 15-24 is 99.3% (as of 2015).
• The economy is heavily burdened by the influx of 2 million Syrian war refugees, who have cost the government $10 billion. Jordan had been economically dependent on business with Iraq, but that border is now closed.
• 500,000 Egyptian laborers work mostly in construction and agriculture.
• While it is a monarchy with an appointed government, Jordan is a democracy and holds elections every 4 years for their House of Representatives and Senate.
• No websites are blocked. Though it’s 95% Muslim, alcohol is sold. And, one assumes, consumed.
It was a longggg ride out there on the modern Desert Highway before we turned off onto the less modern King’s Road, which had been a Roman military road. In some areas we saw many olive trees. At some houses, we saw potted rose bushes. (While I associate roses with an English garden, and an English climate, as long as they are watered, they grow well here — remember my earlier ‘talk’ on the Amouage perfumerie in Oman.) The national flower is the black iris.
As I stood on the ‘rest area’ roof terrace taking a panoramic shot....
... a very large herd of goats went by, below the extensive wind farm which is installed but not yet functioning. It was so windy on that terrace, it was hard to stand still to take the photo — it’s clear they’ll generate a lot of power when they are up and running. They pipe in natural gas from Egypt.
Petra, aka ‘The City Carved in the Rock’
Petra, located in the Shara Mountains, was ‘discovered’ in 1812 by Swiss explorer Johannes Burckhardt, who went looking for it. While most ancient cities were built with quarried stone or man-made bricks, Petra was literally carved into sandstone cliffs and rocky mounds. There is no definitive date when this occurred, but we do know that starting in first 1st century BC, the city began to prosper. It was the capital of the Nabataean Empire. Don’t worry, I hadn’t heard of them either. It was a ‘bustling trade center that controlled ancient routes between Arabia and the Mediterranean.’ (The Petra brochure says it connected Mesopotamia and Egypt.)
Annexed to the Roman Empire, Petra continued to thrive until an earthquake in 363 AD destroyed much of it. Trade routes changed, and, by the middle of the 7th century, it appears to have been deserted by all except the local Bedouin. The remains of this UNESCO World Heritage Site (since 1985) include what is left of homes, temples, royal tombs, an amphitheatre, a colonnaded street, churches and the most famous of all its buildings, Al Khazna, which I shall reveal shortly.
Before you could buy everything under the sun from Amazon and have it delivered by drone, camel caravans stopped a Petra en route back and forth between the Mediterranean and Damascus with their loads of (once again) myrrh, frankincense, incense, spices, plus African ivory, animal hides, carvings, etc. To reach the center of the ‘city,’ you must walk about 3/4 of a mile, or you can ride a horse, a burro or a hell-bent-for-leather carriage through the siq. So Yalla! That's Arabic for ‘Let’s go!’
The siq was formed naturally when the mountain split. The sandy, gravelly path is interrupted occasionally by the remains of the limestone-cobbled road installed by the Romans when they took over the city.
The 1st-century AD Obelisk Tomb, topped by four pyramids and a niche with a bas relief symbolizing the five people buried here.
Below, a camel caravan. Reading left to right: Two back hooves and haunch. Its belly under its hump. Front leg and two front hooves. Torso and two feet of the camel driver. A young biped, nationality unknown.
First glimpse of the Treasury...
Al Khazna... the Treasury. The most magnificent of the remaining carved buildings. Note the Corinthian capitals, friezes and figures. Dates from the 1st century AD, maybe.
In the ‘plaza’ in front of it were, aside from hundreds of tourists, souvenir shops, a coffee shop with WiFi, many hawkers (of scarves, jewelry, scarves, carved camels, camels available for a ride or a photo op, scarves et al). The Petra Archeological Park brochure has rules, including: ‘Please do not encourage child labour, park roamers or any other illegal trading within the park.’ As our guide said, ‘Why aren’t those kids in school?’ Because they can make a little money hawking... and the desert dwellers are not big proponents of education or even basic literacy. I prefer my camels on the hoof and took this guy’s picture several times. Each time I got close, I said ‘Please don’t spit at me.’ Camels have a bad reputation. This one was very sweet and well-behaved. I know it looks like his/her legs have been amputated below the knees, but they’re just folded back when ‘seated.’ No, I didn't get onboard, though several friends did.
This sweet little burro posed no problem. To date, I have ridden a horse (visiting hillside temples in Indonesia). I eschewed the elephant in India and this camel here in Petra.
Re: Caves. Until the 1980’s, people still lived in them here. Queen Noor — the late King Hussein’s fourth wife (in succession, not simultaneous), an American who attended Sarah Lawrence — instigated a program to move them out of the caves and into a specially constructed village so they would have access to services, including health care and education. This neon-lit cave home exists (as an exhibit, not a dwelling) behind one of the souvenir stalls...
You could google Married to a Bedouin by Marguerite van Geldermalsen, a New Zealand nurse who did just that and lived with him in one of the Petra caves. Her son runs one of the shops you can see here.
Leaving the town of Petra for the 3-hour drive back to Aqaba...
‘Living above the Shop’...
A Bedouin tent compound off the highway.
I had a closer look at Bedouin villages and culture several days later, in Sharm El-Sheikh on the Sinai. But first, we have to sail to Egypt. Yalla! #
