Jordan Challenge 12.3: Petra Comes Full Circle

The first time I visited Petra was in June 2010, on an extremely memorable visit with Siham and Connor.  That time we saw the Siq, the Treasury, the Monastery and all the other sites that have made Petra world-famous.  On that visit we also spent an unforgettable night in a desert cave, hosted by our new friends, Khalid and Ibrahim.

My all-time favorite photo: Siham and our friend Khalid from two years ago, and our first trip to Petra.

Ibrahim, Siham and Connor at Little Petra -- also two years ago.

 Last year, I was lucky to return to Petra with my friends and former students, Kate and Alexsis, when the three of us were in Jordan and the West Bank, doing research on the Millennium Development Goals in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Alexsis and Kate from our Petra visit that was almost exactly a year ago.

Given that I knew I'd be living in Jordan for ten months, and hoped that I'd have multiple visitors, this year one of the Challenges on my list was to try to see Petra in three different ways.  Earlier this year I did two of them; Petra by Night with Chris, and Petra for Morning People with Paul. And last week I completed that challenge with my Petra Full Circle visit.  The visit earned the name in two senses; first, in going there with Siham, we were able to go back to the place that we had discovered for the first time almost exactly two years ago.  And second, in visiting with Siham and Leah, we were able to take the entire project encompassed by first 52 New Things and then the series of challenges of the last two years back to the beginning in a sense. And of course, as is always the case when the three of us embark on an adventure, we had a lot of fun!

As my colleague Amy pointed out, wasn't it clever of me to dress in matching stripes?

Siham and Leah enjoying the fact that the tour buses had totally cleared out of the Siq, leaving it all for us.

A shot of the Monastery taken by Leah -- the reward for climbing the 850 steps to get there.

The best jump shot of the trip award went to Leah this time, posing in front of the Treasury.

Jordan Challenge 12.2: Petra for Morning People

For the last week, I’ve been hosting my friend/colleague/honorary cousin Paul who’s been visiting me from Vermont. We’ve had all kinds of fun adventures that I’ll write about in another post, but since one of the original challenges on my list was to visit Petra three times, and in three different ways, I decided to write about Petra separately. I went earlier this year with Chris, and the new element for me was taking the Petra at Night tour, which is an amazing visual experience. The one thing that was a bit disappointing about it was that it drew a major crowd, and so though it was wonderful, it was definitely, well, crowded. This time, I learned a valuable truth. If you want Petra to yourself, go in the morning.

Just outside the entrance to Petra, some of the shops are still capitalizing on the memorable scene that Harrison Ford filmed as Indiana Jones riding through the Siq and coming upon the Treasury.

In order to make the most of this trip, Paul and I took full advantage of the fact that we are morning people. We decided to go for two days, which means getting up really early to catch the 6:30 am bus on the first day. It’s a three to four hour bus ride from Amman, so when we arrived at Wadi Musa, the town that Petra was in, we first stopped by La Maison Hotel, where we’d be spending the night, and they obligingly let us check in early. From there, we did an early lunch and then headed into Petra for a day of exploring.

As I’ve mentioned in previously posts, one of the most amazing things about Petra is the Siq, which is a 2 kilometer long gorge that you walk through to get into the ancient city. It’s not like anything else I’ve ever walked through, and it’s all the more spectacular because it dumps you into a big open circle with a giant carved tomb (the Treasury) directly in front of you. Walking out from the Siq and facing the Treasury is surely one of the most visually stunning things a person can do, and probably one of the most-photographed moments in the world. This was my fourth trip to Petra, but it never loses that charm. We also, of course, hiked along the roads lined with tombs and later Roman ruins, and did the obligatory trudge up to the Monastery.

We had also resolved to try another highly-recommended Petra activity – visiting a Hammam. I had already visited one with my good friend and Fulbright explorer Elizabeth in Amman, but there’s something very enticing about ending a sweaty, tiring day of hiking in the desert with a Turkish bath. We took the hotel’s recommendation to go to the Nabatean Bath and were not disappointed.

Outside the Nabatean Hammam, which I cannot recommend enough as a night-time activity after a day of marching around the caves and cliffs of Petra.

Next day was the time to try out our theory that Petra in the early morning was the thing to do, and we were wildly happy that we had. If you want the Siq and Treasury to yourself, we learned, the time to be there is around 7 am. No one is around but a few Bedouin merchants starting their day and the camels and donkeys. The Siq and Treasury are always great, but to have them all to yourself is really an unforgettable experience.

Paul, enjoying the unusual experience of solitude walking through the Siq..

..and being able to sit all by himself on the steps of the Treasury.

We also hiked up to the High Place of Sacrifice, with virtually no fellow travelers.  There, we took advantage of having the place to ourselves to try to explore the actual slab where the Nabateans sacrificed the animals and also to let me do some of the burpees I needed to do to keep up with my 100 burpee challenge (it was day 78, I think). I only did a set or two there, but it's definitely the most memorable place I've done them (with the outside lobby of the Dead Sea Movenpick Hotel during the archeological dig with Elizabeth coming in second).

Sarah, our Fulbright exercise guru, will br proud to know that I didn't let my visit to Petra keep me from doing my daily burpees.  We had the place to ourselves and it was wonderfully flat and spacious.

They didn't actually ever sacrifice humans here in ancient times, but I asked Paul to do a bit of dramatic interpretation.

...and here he is in his second role -- Paul Olsen, yogi master.

Should anyone be planning a trip to Petra, here are the lessons I learned from Part II of my See Petra Three Ways Challenge:

• Get a two-day pass. It takes all the pressure off of having to see everything the first day.

• Hike hard the first day and hit a hammam in the evening for a fabulous experience.

• If you like to have a place to yourself, get up early and hit the trails. Unless you’re Bill Gates and can buy out the Park, this is the closest you will ever come to having your own private tour through the Siq and at the Treasury. Totally worth it.

30. Visit Jordan Happy Hour, Part II

Strong as the desert, soft as sand, move like the wind, free forever.
-- Bedouin self-description

I'm way behind on blogging, largely because it seems like when I have Internet I don't have electricity, and when my computer is fully charged I can't seem to get on-line. But today I think I may have both in the lobby of the Farah Hostel where Connor, Siham and I spending our last two nights together in Amman. So it's time to do some catching up, beginning with a post of a few more details on what the three of us agree was one of the best experiences of our lives -- our trip to Petra.

I could go on for hours about the whole experience, and that's a warning to friends back in the States, because the three of us probably will. But if I were to try to be a bit more succinct, I'd say the amazingness of the experience boiled down to three things: first, the visit to the actual astonishing site that is Petra; second, the following day, our opportunity to do some things that most tourists don't get to, including having tea with the families of our new friends and visiting Little Petra, and finally, and probably most impactful, going on a sunset hike through the cliffs out of Petra and spending the night in a desert cave with our new friends, Khalide and Ibrahim.

Even if we hadn't gotten to meet Khalide and Ibrahim and had our desert adventure, I'd say Petra is easily one of the most astonishing places I've ever been. It's an ancient city, carved into the sandstone cliffs, and with caves, and huge buildings like the Treasury and the Monstery (pictured above) and a road that winds through steep cliffs on both sides for over a kilometer. It's beautiful and breathtaking, and everywhere you look is another cave or structure just waiting to be explored. It is truly deserving of its reputation as a world wonder.

At the end of the path through Petra, up an 800-step path that can wear you out climbing up (unless you get lazy and ride a donkey, which we had the pride to resist) is the Monastery. Across from the Monastery is a cafe and gift shop owned collectively by 5 Bedouin families, and it was there that we met Khalide and Ibrahim, whose families are part of the collective. We drank tea and chatted, and ultimately took them up on their invitation to go up further in the mountains to make dinner and spend the night under the stars. The whole story is too long for a post, but when they closed the shop for the night, Khalide led us on a long hike out of Petra where we stopped to watch the sunset and then went to a place where we could see beyond the Jordanian borders. Ibrahim went into town and bought some food, and then we met him in their truck and drove out to one of the small caves where they like to camp. They built a fire and we cooked a fabulous dinner, and danced and talked into the wee hours of the morning.

The next day after we got up and broke down the camp (in about 5 minutes flat -- those guys know what they're doing), we visited the cave home of Ibrahim's father and third wife (the first two live in town, but the third is in charge of the sheep herd) and then the home of Khalide's mom. Of course, we had tea and all kinds of goodies in both places, and soaked in a culture incredibly different than our own. Then Ibrahim and Khalide took us to Little Petra, another ancient town carved into sandstone, very similar to Petra only smaller, and with no admission fee and almost no tourists. There, we had free rein to climb all over the place, and we did.

Words really can't do justice to the experience, and it's killing me that I can only seem to get three pictures to load onto the blog. But here is the tiniest glimpse of our fabulous time -- one is of the Monastery, another of the sunset we watched together, and the one of Siham and Khalide, I must confess, is my favorite picture I've ever taken.

I think in many ways the Bedouin way of being is about as far away from the American experience as a culture can get. It's not concerned with money, or time, or obligation. It's about being in the moment and freedom, and for 24 hours we got to be a part of it, thanks to Khalide and Ibrahim.

30. Visit Jordan Happy Hour, Part I

So, I have about 15 minutes of time before the battery dies on this computer and I'm dying to share some images from our most recent adventure. So, here there are, with almost no explanation, which I'll write up soon. The very short story is that we went to one of the most amazing sites in the world and had an incredible adventure when we were befriended by Khalide and Ibrahim, whose families are some of those who cooperatively own the shop across from the Monastery, which is the furthest point of the buildings at the Petra site. They took us on a sunset hike out of Petra and took us to one of the caves where they stayed where we cooked dinner over a fire and danced and talked for hours on end in the middle of the mountain desert. More later, but here are a few images for now.