Petra: Day 1

We have had a fun past week! Nathan's cousin Jenn and family that are stationed in Japan, came to visit us. We explored Petra for two days, camped at a bedouin camp in Wadi Rum, visited Jerash, and they visited quite a few other places on their own. I have lots of pictures, so I'm going to break the blog into a few days.

Today is Petra, Day 1. We woke up early in the morning headed south. We arrived in Petra mid morning, had lunch at our hotel, the had the day to explore. Petra is one of the new seven wonders of the world. It is believed to have been built/carved as early as the 300's BC, and was the capital of the Nabateans in the 1st century. Petra later became part of the Roman Empire, and it was a major trading hub for frankincense, myrrh, and spices. In the 4th century, most of the city was destroyed by a major earthquake, and by the 7th century was mostly deserted except for Bedouin people. The city was rediscovered in 1812 by a swiss explorer and has become popular ever since.

We started our tour of Petra by horse and carriage and entered the Siq trail.

The Siq trail is about mile long narrow gorge that occurred from a natural splitting of the mountain.Water channels run across both sides of the rock along the entire way. Check out the amazing colors of the rocks!

The walls go from wider to narrow along the way.

After close to a mile...

The Siq opens into the Treasury and lots of camels and donkeys waiting to take you for a ride.

The treasury was believed to be made sometime in the 1st century, it is close to 40m high, and beautiful decorated with carvings. It is an incredible structure to see, and unbelievable how symmetrical and perfectly shaped the treasury is.

 Benjamin quickly found his first friend of the day with one of the bedouin guides.

From the treasury, we picked up donkeys and rode for the rest of the day.

We rode down the old Roman road and saw lots of old tombs, to include the Royal tombs, which is 4 main tombs.

At the end of the road, we came to an old church and the Great Temple.

Omar was one of our guides on both days. He and Benjamin took a liking to each other :).

Caleb and Nathan on top of the Great Temple.

The Bobrowski and Purcell crew :).

Overlooking the tombs.

Petra is known as the rose red city, and when the sun goes down, you can especially see the beautiful color of the rocks.

We made it back to the treasury as the sun was setting, and rode carriages back to the park entrance. We were some of the last people out of the park!

We got back to the hotel as the sun was setting.

That night, Jenn and I went back to Petra for the night walk, which is held 3 times a week. The entire Siq trail is lit by candles. It was incredible. The only light was from the candles and from the moon and stars that were plentiful.

After hiking a mile by candle light, you get to the treasury. It was absolutely beautiful. A bedouin was playing the flute, someone was serving tea to the guests, and afterwards the man told a story about Petra.

Can you see us?

It was a beautiful walk back, lit by the candles and stars. We stayed behind the crowd and pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was an amazing first day...stay tuned sometime after Christmas to hear about the adventures of Day 2.