Wonder in Petra

Petra, Jordan

Think back, back to the eighties, to the Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade movie. When you see the photos below you might recognise the ancient city carved into the hillside. That city is not a fictional facade, made just for film, but a place in the mountains of Jordan known as Petra. But that is but a small claim to fame, when you consider Petra is considered one of the Seven Wonders Of The World.

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For once in Jordan, the journey to get there was pretty straightforward, using a minibus pretty much door to door. On the journey I sat in front of an Australian/Danish couple in their sixties who turned out to be very experienced travellers. The guy ran a tour bus company in the seventies that did a famous route from London to Kathmandu; the hippie trail passing through the now off-limits Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan amongst others. He'd also lived in Australia, India and Indonesia so it was fascinating to hear some of his stories. 

Once in Wadi Musa - the town by Petra that hosts the hoards of hotels, cafés and tacky souvenir shops, I dropped my bags at the hostel, and charged my electrics. Three days in the desert had flattened first my camera, then sports camera, phone and finally tablet. And there's little point being at one of the seven wonders without a camera. 

Around midday I walked down the hill to the park entrance, bought a two day pass, then down the long dirt track into the ancient city. The valley started wide, then slowly evolved into a very narrow and deep canyon which was stunning in itself, and walked for another mile or so until I turned the corner and caught my first glimpse of Petra's most iconic building - The Treasury (pictured).

I'm not really much of an ancient history buff to be honest, but the sight of the well preserved and beautiful two-thousand year old building, carved into the sandstone walls is enough to stir anyone, and I was pretty blown away. I continued a couple of miles right to the other side of the city, up hundreds of steps to the Monastery (below). In many ways, this building was even more stunning, and because of the long and steep hike it was without the masses of tourists I'd seen earlier. 

I headed to a small local restaurant near the hostel that evening and grabbed a seat. After hearing me talking to the owner, a lady on the next table asked me a question about the area. We got talking and they invited me to join them - two English ladies in their forties (I guess, they're probably reading this so hope I'm right!) and a very camp Russian guy called Sergei whom they'd picked up on their way to Petra. I've not spent much time with English people for a while (except my brother of course) so it was good to chat and hear their stories, with Sergei provided some odd but amusing anecdotes as well.

Day two of Petra started slower than I wanted, as I desperately had to book my flight to India... desperately as it was for the next day! I'd been watching the prices for a few weeks, and knew they would stay stable to the last day, so left it late for flexibility. In fact, the price dropped £20 the day I bought so it was well worth waiting. After this, it was the long walk back down to the remains of Petra city centre, for another hike up one side of the valley to look down on the treasury, then the other side looking at the various remains of caves, carvings temples, shops, burial chambers, and water channels along the way. 

Ancient buildings carved into the cliffs

Throughout the park there were hundreds of the local Bedouin people selling rides on donkeys, horses and camels, as well as tea and souvenirs from makeshift stalls - no matter whether you were on the Main Street, or two miles up a mountain. This was a bit of a rousing issue - on the selfish side, people pay a huge amount (over £50 for a day ticket) to see Petra, and want to enjoy it without being constantly pestered. But on the other hand, they were clearly very poor and desperate for the money, and had every right to be there trying to earn a basic living however they could. As I approach India, I'm sure there'll be many more such situations, and likely much more extreme.

Petra was stunning, but strangely I wasn't quite as moved by it as I expected. I'm not sure whether it was the hype, the nature of what it is, or maybe I've become a bit desensitised to amazing things, having seen so much recently. You can only have so much of a good thing as they say. But having walked over ten miles both days, Petra was worth both the money, and the tired legs.