Magnificent Petra

Da da da da! Da da da! Da da da da! Da da da da da! Da da DA da da, DA da da Da da da DA da da... (Roll the theme Song to Indian Jones!) We made it to Petra today! Ed was there with his special hat to help Harrison Ford find the holy Grail!

We (especially Ken) were happy to welcome Laurie to our little traveling group last night. She looked pretty chipper this morning despite just getting over a transatlantic flight through Paris to Amman, Jordan!

It took us 4 hours just to get to Petra this morning. Our timing was somewhat hampered by a bad microphone in the bus, as well as a stop to see the rock Moses supposedly struck to get water to the whining Israelites at what is now the Moses Spring.

We arrived in Petra just in time for lunch. The buffet at the Alqantarah restaurant was nice and quick so we could hurry on with our journey! We were also joined today by the Driggs, who will be with us for the rest of the tour as well!

Petra is Jordan's largest tourist attraction, and they had set it up with a nice entrance and a little museum area to start out the trek.

There is about a mile walk down through a narrow "Siq" to get to the city of tombs. There were beautiful tombs everywhere. The horses and carriages were very popular!

Walking in was an easy downhill stroll of about a mile. We thought we'd save the horsy ride for the walk back up!

Although the site looks like a river bed similar to the Narrows in Zion National Park, they actually had two sets of pipes going down, one for irrigation water and one for drinking water.

Our guide, Mohammed, stopped along the way to tell us interesting things about the way people lived. Here was an early water filtration system!

Our group stopped for a quick pick as we approached the Treasury and left the narrow gorge!

I have to admit I had a romantic notion of being alone in Petra, but the rest of the world has discovered it, as well! This picture of me in front of the treasury looks a little like a "Where's Waldo" picture!

The Treasury, was really a royal tomb, and the hills are riddled with beautiful rock-cut tombs! There was so much to explore, and way too little time to do it!

We were able to walk down to the rock cut amphitheater. It was like an ancient Red Rocks, with a capacity for 3000 people!

We also were able to do a little shopping, as the vendors here were not as aggressive as they were in Egypt! We bought some camels to hang on our Christmas tree!

We stopped to take a picture of the rababa player (violin thingy) because we love music and because the little girl was so cute!

To complete our Petra trip we rode horses up the hill to the entrance!

Petra was a place we wished we had more time for! It was one of those places that just being there made you feel fortunate! Next time I'd book a hotel in Petra and save the 4 hour trip to and from Amman! Three hours was just barely enough to scratch the surface!