We crossed 500 meters of heavily secured no-man’s land on foot.  We were fully loaded with all of our belongings, a bit unsure of the process, and ready for a few days in the Kingdom of Jordan.  Why Jordan?  Because we were so close.  Because Petra seemed mysterious.  And because our friend Angela convinced us we needed a few nights in the desert with the Bedouin people.

As we crossed over and started our drive North from the Red Sea up The Kings Highway, the terrain changed dramatically.  No more flat plateaus and occasional rocky outcrops.  We were now surrounded by sharp, steep rock towers and we wove our way through brown and red mountains as the sun set.

We woke early the next morning to start our day in Petra National Park.  Petra is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, probably best known for it’s staring role as the backdrop in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  I tried to keep expectations low and anticipated a couple of rock facades surrounded by hundreds of tourists.  Instead, we were met with a massive national park, full of incredibly preserved ruins that we could explore as we wished… and we had it mostly to ourselves.

The city is nestled… no hidden… in the mountains and to find it, you must walk through The Siq.  The pictures will do more justice than my poor discription, but neither share how truly awesome this 30 minute walk was for Jonathan and me.  We were nearly alone in a canyon with colorful towering walls that were making curves, shadows, and echos all around us.  And all the while, you know that around one of these corners will be your first glimpse of The Treasury.

Now, Jonathan and I knew next to nothing about Petra (apart from it holding the Holy Grail of course) or the people who built tis incredible city, so here is what we learned:  Built by the Nabateans (no, we had never heard of them either) in ~312 BC, Petra was a major crossroad used for trading between Arabia, Egypt, and Syria-Phoencia.  The city flourished for hundreds of years building and carving incredible tombs for their past leaders, a treasury, a theater, and a great monestary.

Eventually, the Nabateans were annexed by Rome (though largely ignored) and left their capitol city once the Arabia trade route moved away from the area.  Petra is tucked away between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea surrounded by Jordan’s Shara Mountains and went undiscovered until a Swiss adventurer stumbled on it in 1812.  Since then excavations continue to discover and visitors are left to imagine what went into the carving and building of this ancient city.

After a day full of hiking, we headed south to Wadi Rum, also known as Valley of the Moon.  It is a desert wilderness area, home to the Bedouin people, and the setting for Lawrence of Arabia’s epic adventures and writings.  We arrived after sundown and we were met by Nile, one of the Bedouin hosts we would be staying with.  He threw our belongings in the back of his truck, popped us in the cab, cranked up the Arabic radio, lit his cigarette, and took us on a dark wild ride through the desert to his family’s camp.  I held on while trying to figure out how he knew where the hell he was going – Wadi Rum is not much for roads or lights.  Eventually, we pulled up into camp where a hot dinner, fire, and tea were waiting for us.  The Bedouins are a broad seminomadic group, whose name means “Desert Dwellers” in Arabic.  They have inhabited the deserts from North Africa to the Middle East and are traditionally divided into tribes.  Though most Bedouins have recently traded in their tents for more modern villages, they retain their traditional culture through songs, dances, cooking style, and remaining close to their desert home.  Nile and his father Obed spend their time running a traditional Bedouin camp to give visitors a chance to experience the life of these Desert Dwellers of not too long ago.  Jonathan and I filled up our bellies, clapped along to their traditional songs, and spent time just soaking up the thousands of stars a desert night gifts you.

 

 

The next day was jam-packed with desert activities including off roading in Nile’s truck, climbing sand dunes, admiring the enormous rocks around us, drinking tea (known in Wadi Rum as Beduoin Whiskey) with just about everyone we saw in the desert, and riding camels out to watch the sunset.

It was an awesome day!  Though the activities were definitely fun, the real prize was the landscape.  It was jaw-dropping.  When given the chance to just wander by myself through the sand among these rock giants, I found myself feeling the size of an ant craining my neck to look around.   T.S. Lawrence (the man we know as Lawrence of Arabia) describes encountering it, “Our little caravan fell quiet, afraid and ashamed to flaunt its smallness in the presence of such stupendous hills.”.