So, I'm really really sorry for my huge delay in posting. I've just been so incredibly busy these past couple of weeks, it's been extremely difficult to find time at all to post. Our Arabic classes have become a lot more intense and fast-paced, so I have literally hours of homework every night.
But I'm going to try and briefly talk about my experience in Petra a couple of weeks ago so that you guys can catch up with what's been going on.
So the next morning, after waking up from a terribly freezing cold night of barely any sleep, we all got ready and ate breakfast at the bedouin campsite. The breakfast was, once again, incredibly delicious. So after we all packed up our things out of the tent, we settled onto our buses and continued our journey on. A lot of us, finally glad to get some warmth, managed to doze off during our 1.5 hour bus ride to Petra.
When we arrived, we first drove through a little town called, big surprise - Petra! It seemed to be a small settled village/town, but its location was absolutely breathtaking. We were driving up and down huge hills and the view from some of the houses located there must have been incredible.
When we arrived at the visitor center, we quickly got our tickets and set off on foot towards the main entrance to the road that leads to the ancient city. On our walk down there we saw a lot of old tombs and burial cites. Apparently the area outside of the city was called the cemetery and a lot of people were buried there.
We reached the beginning of the road that leads to the city not long after. This part was super cool. Basically this road is a really narrow passage in between two ginormous rocks that was formed from the shifting of tectonic plates over time. At parts of it, the road was only about two meters wide, it was amazing. So we began walking downward through this mile-long passage. The rocks were absolutely stunning. The shape and color they had taken through floods flowing through there from time to time was incredible. They were also extremely high. I felt like we were tiny little ants, walking in between the cracked and dried dirt of the ground, and was half expecting a giant's foot to step down somewhere above us. Feeling that insignificant next to the huge earth was really a cool experience.
We kept walking into little crevices and finding places to take pictures. We also saw a lot of different sculptures and engravings left behind from ancient times, which was cool. When we finally reached the end of the passage, our tour guides pulled a really clever trick on us. They made us step to a certain point in the passage, turn around and look at a giant rock behind us. Then they encouraged to back up a little further and stare up at it. They told us to look deep and hard at the rock for a couple of minutes to see if we could make out anything of the shape of the rock. Whoever could guess it first, they said, would get a really awesome prize. All of us, totally gullible and excited to figure it out first, turned around and examined the rock for quite a bit.
The tour guides were just grinning and smiling at our faces and how hard we were trying to figure it out. All of a sudden one of them shouted, "now turn around, everyone!" Confused, we all turned around. Everyone let out a loud gasp or "oooh!"
In reality, there had been nothing on the rock behind us. The tour guides had pulled a clever trick, making us stand at such a point in the passage way, that if we turned around we would catch our first glimpse of the enormous and absolutely gorgeous treasury that the main road to Petra leads to. If you google "Petra" I'm positive you will find a picture of not only the treasury, but also what the first glimpse of it looks like through the parting rocks of the passage. It is beautiful.
Everyone, excited as hell, ran down the last bit of passage and onto the clearing where the treasury was located. I know I had expected something magnificent, but I could have never imagined how truly big this incredibly carved rock they call the treasury would be. All I can say is, standing at the very bottom of it, our heights did not even reach the entrance to the inside of the building. But what was truly astounding was the insane amount of detail on it. In the pictures you will be able to see a bit of how symmetrical and detailed the artwork was on this huge building. It was crazy, especially thinking about how people had done this over 2000 years ago. We weren't allowed to go inside, but hung out there and took many many pictures for about half an hour.
After we were done at this site, we moved on through another narrow passage to the bottom right of the treasury to the next part of the city. On the way we saw lots of tombs once more, but it seemed that these were those of the richer and more important families. They were absolutely huge and intricate! Further down the road we reached the main center of the city, where there was a market place and a roman theater, and lots of other ruins that would take too long to list. We kept taking more and more pictures, climbing into different crevices and ruins left over in the rocks.
At this point, most unfortunately, my phone died. This meant that I could no longer take pictures, which I would extremely regret later on when we reached the monastery. We walked down maybe another two miles? I have no idea how to judge distances so I really don't know. By the time we reached the restaurant for lunch, all of us were extremely exhausted and starving. I was also extremely tired at this point, due to my lack of sleep the night before, so we all really needed to recharge on some food.
After eating another delicious (buffet) meal, we were told we would have some time to explore. There were two main places we could go and explore. One was the monastery, which was located on a giant rock to which you took about 900 steps to get up to, or the ancient royal tombs, of which there were about 4 or 5.
My group of friends and I decided that we would go to the monastery. I think that was one of the better decisions we made. Although it was 900 steps to climb up, which was an absolute killer, especially under the blazing sun, it was so incredibly worth it, I can't even explain. We of course made lots of stops to catch our breaths and drink water, but overall after about 45 minutes or so we made it up all the way to the monastery.
One of my favorite parts about the hike up I think, was the various women sitting at little stands selling hand made jewelry and calling out to us "everything 1 dinar! Happy hour! Everything one dinar! Every hour, happy hour!"
This monastery itself was just as huge, if not bigger, than the treasury. It had less detail on it, but was just as impressive. We hung out there for a bit, even climbed up into it and took lots of pictures. But our climb up was not done. There was a little ways more to go up in front of where the monastery was located. There was one particular peak to which one could climb up, and of course everyone rushed to do so immediately.
Now this part, I can easily say, was my favorite moment of my entire weekend. When we reached the very very top of this peak, there was just a tiny little tent and a ledge to sit on. In front of us was a vast, open space, filled with huge hills and rocks as far as the eye could see. The ledge we were standing on dropped down below us, so we were literally standing on a tiny piece of rock. The air up there and the view are some of the most amazing things I've experienced so far. We all sat down on some rock, the more adventurous of us dangling their feet over the edge. Even though I had managed to overcome some of my fear of heights the day before, I wasn't nearly over it enough to sit that close to the edge, so I stayed behind a little.
I think we sat up there for an hour or so, just breathing the air and enjoying the amazing view. I think all of us experienced an inner peace up there that would be impossible to enjoy in many other places. It was incredible.
Another favorite part was the little girl, Rasha, who had joined us up there. She was the 11(?) year old daughter of one of the women who lived on the steps that lead up to the monastery. Seeing so many young Americans, she had followed us all the way to the top. She was really an amazing human being. So cheerful, happy and excited to talk to us, even though there was a huge language barrier between us. She had no fear of the height of the rock at all and jumped around and walked all the way to the edge. I guess living and growing up there must make you somewhat of an expert. She was truly adorable though, as she came over and braided my hair and sat with all of us in turn.
Realizing that we only had about an hour to make it all the way back to the buses, we reluctantly decided it was time to hike back down. I have nooo idea how in the world we managed to make it to the buses in time. We had to walk down all 900 steps, hike back to the center of the town, from there to the treasury, all the way back up the main passage leading back up out of Petra, and from there all the way to the visitor center and to the buses. Except for the steps leading down, all of this was uphill too. I dont think I've walked that fast and determined in my life. But it still was extremely fun.
Especially coming to the bus and sitting down, was amazing. Our 4 hour bus ride was spent mostly with listening to music and dozing off. By the time I came home I don't think I have ever felt that tired in my life. But it was truly one of the most amazing and incredible experiences of my life. I would love to do it again some day.
I hope this was able to capture at least a little of how incredible everything was. I will add the pictures in a separate post so you guys can look at those, too.
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