July 2nd-Petra

As we awaken to the beautiful view of the Petra mountain range the anticipation of our visit to the ancient city builds.  This is our final day of our wonderful journey and another highlight of our trip.  The Nabetean Arabs built the ancient city of Petra from 800 BC to 100 AD.  In this era Petra was a fortress carved out of craggy rocks in an area, which was virtually inaccessible.  In the first and second century, after the Romans took over, the city reached the peak of its fame.  Petra covers an area of about 100 square kilometers, where over 800 monuments can be found. When shipping slowly displaced caravan routes, the city's importance gradually dwindled; it fell into disuse and was lost to the world until 1812, when it was re-discovered by the Swill explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt.  Nowadays Petra is Jordan's number one tourist attraction, know as the "rose-red city half as old as time". The Khazneh (the Treasury) starred in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (which ironically is on television as I am writing this blog).

We walked for a total of four hours through Petra; three hours with our guide Sameh, then lunch on the site on our own and an hour walk back to the entrance of the city and a horse ride to the site entrance to meet up with our driver.  The walk through the canyon was beautiful and very interesting as we learned the were two water systems carved into the rocks, one for drinking water, the other for irrigation.  They were originally lined with ceramic pipes to keep the water clean.  The city was a place where they buried their dead so the tombs were everywhere.  It was a great example of the different status of people of the time as the wealthy had very detailed tombs and the lower class were buried in catacombs.  You could see the influence of the Roman society when it was there with temples, columns and churches.  The red rocks where somewhat like Sedona, Arizona but with different minerals running through them to create beautiful patterns.

This was a great finish to our great adventure through Egypt and Jordan.......a trip of a lifetime.  We had such an educational and experiential trip, filled with memories to last forever.  Thanks for sharing in our adventure with us, I hope you enjoyed some of our highlights.  It was good to get home, but we are so grateful  that we were able to travel to such a historical place on this planet.