Petra (camels)

Today we went to Petra. It's one of the 7 wonders of the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The only visual any of us had for it was as the temple Indiana Jones' goes into in the Last Crusade looking for the Holy Grail. We didn't know there's a whole lot more to it. The Treasury is the first facade of the ancient city that you come across, but it is only a minor part.

Let me talk camels before I give you a tour of the other parts of Petra. Jordan is camel country. No Shel - I haven't kissed one but I'll do my best next time I see one. On our drive up to Petra today, we saw camels in the desert, a camel in a backyard (just hanging out), camels for hire at Petra (in case you wanted to ride up or down from the basin). The best camel sighting was on the highway just outside of Aqaba on our way home, mid-afternoon. He was standing in the middle of the right hand lane of the highway, tethered to a palm tree, having a snack and everyone just went around like there's a camel in the middle of the road every day.

The walk down to the ancient city is 4km. It follows an ancient riverbed through a narrow canyon, a siq. The Nabataeans carved water troughs into the walls of the siq to bring the water down to the city. They carved tombs and caves out of the sandstone. To access the Urn tomb, you have to climb tiny steps very high up the canyon wall. Think several stories up - I don't know how many - it was just really 'up'! After walking down the street of Facades, you follow the street of Colonnades past 2 enormous temples. The tombs have survived 3 earthquakes over the past 2000 years - the dwelling caves haven't. I think one could wander around that part of the desert for days, tripping over more artifacts from the city. One of the temples was only uncovered in the early 1990s, and they're still working away at it. Imagine how much else is still out there, waiting to be found...

We saw a 450 year old tree today. And caught the view from 1050m above sea level, which impressed Peter to no end given that we'd started at the hotel at sea level. And didn't run over a camel. Indiana Jones - eat your heart out.