Looking for Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail
Trip Start
Sep 10, 2009
1
14
16
Trip End
Sep 27, 2009
Petra, Jordan
Thursday, September 24, 2009
When I had been planning this trip and looking into tour options I had initially hoped to include Jordan with my trip through Egypt. I realized, however, that money wise I probably wouldn’t be able to do it. Nothing worse than running out of money halfway through a trip. Although accommodation was included with the tour, there are always things to spend money on (plus Jordan is a more expensive country than Egypt).
So when I knew the tour I was on would spend five days in Dahab, I thought I would have a chance to do a two-day or one-day trip to Petra, the area of Jordan I was most interested in seeing.
So I was off to see if I could find the Holy Grail like Indiana Jones. This trip to Petra was not part of the tour and was organized by our tour leader. I was definitely going and Gabriela, my roommate during the tour, also joined me.
We had a long day that started just after our wake up time of 3:30 a.m. We met up with a tour that started in Sharm El-Sheikh I think. Sharm El-Sheikh is probably comparable to the big Mexican resort cities such as Cancun or Cabo San Lucas (but that’s just a guess as I never been to those places and have only read about Sharm El-Sheikh). Dahab is a chilled out tourist town whereas Sharm El-Sheikh is more glamourous (and expensive).
Around 5 a.m. we were on our way to Petra and drove and drove and drove. I was trying to sleep on the minibus but it was a bit uncomfortable to sit due to the sunburn on the back of my legs.
We arrived at Taba around 7:30 a.m. where we would catch a ferry to Jordan at 8:30 a.m. Taba is near the top of the Sinai Peninsula along the Red Sea close to where Egypt borders Israel. Jordan is just across the narrow part of the Red Sea (technically it‘s the Gulf of Aqaba but its all connected).
We went through the rigmarole of clearing customs in Egypt then did the same on the ferry to enter Jordan.
Even though we were crossing the narrowest area of the Red Sea it still took about an hour to cross. At one point the high-speed ferry suddenly swerved to one side to move out of the path of a large cargo ship. It was a sudden enough movement to make things in the galley/snack bar come crashing off the shelves. I don’t know why the ferry suddenly moved out of the path of the cargo ship as they are huge and I would think they would have the right of way. There were several cargo ships visible from our ferry as the Red Sea is the only access to the sea that Jordan has and Israel also has a port on the Red Sea.
We arrived at the port city of Aqaba and after our Jordanian guide rounded us all up, we were on our way.
My first impression of Jordan is that it seems to be more wealthy than Egypt (but this was just looking around the area where the ferry docked) and the landscape was also different. Whereas much of Egypt seems to be just desert, Jordan is much more rocky. Very dry and desert like but more mountainous.
We drove for about two hours (with a couple of short stops for a bathroom break and to take some photos) then we stopped to have lunch at a hotel. I was very grateful to find out this was our lunch stop. Part of me just wanted to hurry up and get to Petra so we would have more time there but I hadn’t eaten all morning.
After lunch we didn’t have far to go to get to Petra and we were there around 2 p.m. That meant we were in the hottest part of the day (it was around 40 Celsius if not hotter) and we had a fair bit of walking ahead of us.
The guide took us into the Siq, the way most people enter the area. He spoke quite a bit about the different ruins we saw. To be honest I don’t remember a lot of what he said. It was extremely hot, I was often looking around and taking photos. Plus I was also thinking about when I would finally get to see the most famous site at Petra.
The Siq is the narrow canyon (but it’s not a canyon as it was actually created by tectonic forces - the earth pulling and pushing apart) you walk through that leads you into a large open area of Petra. At different areas along the Siq there are things carved into the rock side. Some of them look like temples while other just look like holes. Most of them are tombs as Petra is actually a large burial site. I guess it’s a bit like the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Except people also lived at and around Petra as well.
Throughout the entire area that is part of Petra there are about 850 tombs, so the area is huge. You could never see it all in a day, never mind the three hours we had on site.
We eventually did get to the end of the Siq and saw the Treasury. This is the tomb that was made famous in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. You walk through this narrow fissure in the rock (the Siq) where the walls are so narrow and so high you can’t see around corners. Every corner you go around you expect to see the Treasury in all it’s glory but you have to walk for a kilometre or two before you get to it. The anticipation builds the further you walk
The Treasury is an intricate facade hewn into the red sandstone. It’s so beautiful you would think it is a treasury or church or something similar but it was a tomb for an important family or royalty of the Nebataeans who lived in the area when Petra was constructed. According to the book I am getting this bit of info from, the Nebataeans are Arabs who lived in the region before the Romans came into the area. Petra was their capital and they chose the area as it was concealed from the outside world.
The Romans did eventually come to the area and they left their mark, as there is a Roman-style theatre near the Treasury.
The Treasury is not the only beautiful tomb at Petra. Further into the area and in a more open site are three or four facades carved into a rock face (known as the Royal Tombs - this is from a book). Maybe because they are more in the open and more prone to the weathering effects of the environment, some of the details on these tombs have worn away but they are almost as stunning as the Treasury.
After the guide showed us the Treasury he led us further into the area and explained more things (most of which I have forgotten of course) but then we had time to wander around on our own. Gabriela and I went and checked out those Royal Tombs I wrote about before.
With such beautiful facades you might expect the interiors of the tombs to be intricately carved as well but that’s not the case. The interiors are actually completely empty and are just large rooms cut into the rock. I don’t know if there were items or treasures in the tombs when people were buried in them but there is nothing inside them today.
Petra was not just a huge graveyard as it was a large city in it’s prime. However, the Nebataeans lived in similar ways that Bedouin people live today - in tents. That is why almost no homes or living quarters have been found at Petra.
As I said before, you could spend an entire day at Petra and still not see everything, so three hours was gone before we knew it. I didn’t get a chance to go inside the Treasury but from what another person told me it was similar to the Royal Tombs in that it was just an empty room.
Gabriela and I had to hurry back as we needed to be back at the bus by a certain time and we still had to walk a couple of kilometres back along the Siq and the path to the entrance gate. We were five or 10 minutes late but who cares. It was worth it to have just a few more minutes at Petra.
We met the guide at the entrance gate and Gabriela ran to the post office to buy stamps and mail a couple postcards home whereas I went to buy water and Coke to drink for the bus ride back to Egypt. My water had run out after about an hour, so I could have chugged about a litre of Coke easily.
We left Petra around 5:30 p.m. and had another 6.5 hours of travel to get back to our hotel in Dahab. So it was about seven hours of travel to get to Petra, about 3.5 hours on site then 6.5 hours to get back. A very long day and some people might say its a waste to travel so much to only have a few hours at a site but to me it was worth it. My first sight of the Treasury was so worth it. Of course I wish I had more time but at least I got to see Petra. Who knows if I will ever get the chance to go back to that part of the world.
Before leaving on my trip to Egypt I had read online of people organizing two-day trips to Petra through travel agents in Dahab. I would have preferred that as it would have meant the afternoon at Petra, an overnight stay in the town nearby then a morning back at Petra. And from what I read it would have cost not much more than what I paid for the day trip we did but I put my trust in our tour leader Mina. If I had felt better on our first day in Dahab I might have gone into town and asked around at travel agents about trips to Petra but I was in no shape for that.
Besides I did have a great day inspite of waking up insanely early.
