Pt. 2 of a Jordanian Trilogy, or Petra Rocks! (yeah, I know)

The Khazneh, most famed building in Petra.

A Wedge O' Cheese for the Win!

One of the underrated aspects of the cell phone age is the increasing disappearance of alarm clocks or even watches from our lives. This falls more on generational lines, I believe: younger folks like myself are more inclined to skip watches and just dig into our pockets for our cell phone. And it's easier to customize a cell phone alarm tone than a regular alarm clock anyway. Truly, it's a grand age we live in.

Except when one travels in a foreign country where his cell phone gets no service. And when his cell phone, in light of the no service condition, goes into a "powersave" mode. And when he sets his alarm clock to catch the early morning bus to Petra, the only bus that goes to Petra each day at a discount of about $100 from taking a cab, and he is unaware that in "powersave" mode, his cell phone's alarm clock will not work. Then things aren't so grand.

For all that, while my alarm was set for 5:15 - to give me a chance to shower maybe, then catch a cab to the Jett station to be there by 6, with plenty of time to get on the 6:30 bus - I managed to open my eyes with alertness at about 6:14, right when I wake up for school. Cursing, I threw on my t-shirt and strangely stained shorts from the day before and bolted out the door, waving a goodbye to one of the guys at the TV in the lounge of the hotel as I left. I caught a cab a minute after getting out of the door, made it to the station, found a ticket for 8 JD, and by 6:40 the bus was on its way to Petra, me in tow.

The bus ride took three and a half hours, time I mostly spent reading or trying to sleep (my alarm clock went off during the one stretch near Petra where I got reception, strangely enough), so I can report not at all on the Jordanian landscape. It seemed pretty desert-like whenever I peeled the window curtain back, but that was not often.

I got out at Petra and immediately a bus driver or someone similar told me that the only bus back to Amman left at 5. Ugh. I had hoped to spend all day in Petra, the night in a hostel, and then the following morning riding back to Amman. Now I had to choose between staying an extra 7 hours or cutting the night out of my plans.

At first I leaned towards the night in Petra. Or near Petra - Petra itself is the rock city, while the "modern-day" town near it is Wadi Musa. The hostels I had written down were cheap and, purportedly, within 250 meters of the bus station. As we were dropped off right near the entrance to Petra, I figured I could stay nearby and be all set for the next two days, allowing for a nice peaceful exploration of a place everybody says you have to visit. I bought a two day ticket (only 26 JD, compared to 21 JD for one day) and set off for the main drag of Wadi Musa, hoping to find a spot to rest my head.

There plenty of hotels on the street, in various levels of disrepair or repair, but they all were in the "hotel" category, one I had no interest in partaking in. I could have sworn the Cleopetra should have been closer, but it's clever name never appeared on any signs near me, and the road in Wadi Musa only threatened to go up, around a hill. Here I should mention that in Hebrew, "Wadi" means riverbed. In Arabic (slightly more pertinent), it means desert. It felt like one, that day.

After asking around and finding that the hostels I had in mind were atop that hill, I reversed my decision. No way I wanted to deal with walking up there or taking a cab both ways a bunch of times. I was on the border anyway, and this pushed me back to the other side. It was not yet 11:00, and they suggested I be at the bus by 4:30. 5 and a half hours would be enough, I figured. Ahh, screw it, who did I have to prove myself to, right?

So I exchanged my ticket to regain 5 JD and, after using the facilities in the Visitors' Centre, I marched into Petra. First I had to clear the gift shops and kiosks outside the entrance, most notably the Indiana Jones Gift shop. (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed here. I've never seen it.) Then, upon entrance into Petra, I had a 10-15 minute walk down to the "Siq", Arabic for "cleft", which gives way to the main part of the city, including the most splendid building, the Khazneh (treasury).

Having been in Morocco and then Israel for some time, I've understood that in Middle Eastern or Arabic countries, you're going to get a lot of offers for service or goods or whatever from people trying to sell. Here, the most common "service" was a donkey (or camel or horse, but especially donkey) ride.

"Want to ride on a horse, mister?" one fellow asked me.
"No thanks," I said, "I'm good."
"Come on, it's much easier and faster, nice price."
"I got two horses," I said, thinking quicker than usual. I slapped my thighs and said, "Strong, they'll get me there."
"Oh, you have horses!" he said with a laugh. "Can I get a ride?"
"Sure, nice price too," I joked, before walking away and allowing any questionable elements in that conversation to continue.

Without a four-legged animal beneath my butt, I managed to make it through that introductory level with no problem. I detoured to a couple tombs on the way into the city, stopping in one to eat breakfast (bread and hummus I toted the whole trip) and drink water, as well as to change my t-shirt. I only later realized that being in a tourist's Mecca like Petra, there was no reason to worry about drinking or eating in public during Ramadan.

In Petra there is that introductory 10-15 minutes, and then you enter the Siq. The Siq is path between two tall faces of rock, leaving a path about 10 meters wide - small enough so that when a donkey chariot goes by, you have to get close to the wall to allow everyone space. There are a few man-sculpted items along the rock, but for the most part it's geological layers of beauty stripped to the sun and the naked eye. The layers are all browns and dusty reds and blacks, and they change color under different lights. This is an appropriate proper entrance into the city, as it's the first time the mystical astonishment of Petra hits. And of course, at this point I discovered my camera was having problems (I also discovered how to work around the problem, and hence the pictures. And by the end of the day it righted itself, on to new problems).

The Siq.

While the Siq is quite impressive on its own, it also serves as that proper entrance to the city because, as I said, when you exit it after 15 minutes or so of skygazing wandering, you are met with the Khazneh. The treasury is all facade, as there's nothing inside to see (and you're not allowed in anyway), but it is a very impressive building, covered in statues and crawling with tourists. If anything, it almost begins the Petra trip on its peak, with everything downhill from there.

That's mostly figurative, however. After milling about the building and buying a water, I went to my right, where a path descended into the rest of the city. The street of the facades followed, and in all the rock there were structures to be seen and buildings to marvel at. When arriving upon more open ground again, you can find to your right an impressive Byzantine Church atop a hill, with other structures around it. To the left is a little shop, and above that shop a set of stairs. I, being the curious type, took the stairs.

The Byzantine Church (possibly mis-identified) and the other structures near it.

My guidebook, as well as the official free brochure the Visitors' Centre provides, talks about the High Places altar, where sacrifices of old used to be done. Both mention it as a highlight of the city. I, realizing as I began to walk up the stairs that this was where I was heading, looked forward to a brisk climb and nice views, plus more cool structures.

Thirty sun-drenched uphill minutes later, I was resting in the shade, fears of dehydration somehow sneaking into my brain (because, you know, I've never forcefully dehydrated myself for a day or anything). This was mostly a stair climb, but it was tough. Throw in the fact that I had eaten a meager breakfast and that I had my stuffed backpack on my back, and I was beginning to feel it. I was beginning to doubt. Which leads to a mild digression.

The long and winding stairway to heaven, or a sacrificial altar. Same thing.

When Ben and I traveled through Galicia, we joked about how we "won" at various phases of the trip. We had conquered our trip, mastered it, and seized victory.
That's a silly way to look at traveling, to a certain extent, and we meant it as nothing more than a joke.
But it does get into questions of why we travel. Yes, a traveler wants to see new things, meet new people, explore new worlds. That's all noble. But there are also things like "being able to say you went," or "I had to go see it, that's what everybody said," (how many times have you justified a trip with a line like that?). Similarly, somebody like me thrives on the extremes travel forces upon the traveler, because that creates good stories.
At the same time, travel is wearying. It forces you to live in the present moment, but a bad trip leaves you eager to get back home. Doubts creep into your head; "Why did I come here," "Why didn't I just stay home and rest and save my money," "What's the point," "What are those strange glazed spots on my shorts anyway?"
So as I sat in the shade near the top of my hike to the sacrificial altar, I felt like I was losing this trip, and like staying home for five days of swimming on the beach and writing and not worrying wouldn't have been so bad after all. My car wasn't here, I couldn't contact my friends, my back hurt, etc. A change had to come for this to be salvaged.

After I resumed my trek, five minutes brought me to a shack. To my right was the last bit of the climb, to my left was a Roman Soldier's Tomb, but in the conditions I opted to go straight, for some guidance and maybe some water.
Two women sat behind a table on the elevated floor of the building. They had headscarves on.
"You can't go up there," one said to me as I approached.
"Where?"
"To the altar. Did you bring a chicken or a goat?"
"No. Why?"
"You need to bring a chicken or a goat, so the priest can sacrifice it. Otherwise, you can't go up."
"Really?"
"Yeah." The woman had kept a straight face and a straight voice as she said this, though her friend to her left was giggling all the while. I was 95% certain she was messing with me, gullible as I am, but I decided to deal with bigger issues first.
"Can I get some water, at least?"
"Oh, yeah, sure, help yourself."
I climbed into the shack and walked to the refrigerator, where a bottle of water leaked on the other bottles. I took one. I returned to the sand ground below the shack. I approached the woman awkwardly, however, at first from the ground and then thinking that rude, I climbed the stairs back up to pay her on an even ground. She, sensing the confusion said, "Here, come eat with me."
I didn't think it a bad idea, and so I said, "Ok."
So I sat down with this woman, a Bedouin who commuted from two and a half hours away each day to work at Petra, selling souvenirs and water. She spoke pretty good English, and we spoke in bursts, punctuation for our meal of pita and a wedge of cheese with a German or Dutch gal on the wrapper. She told me that one day was not enough for Petra. I took another water. Two dudes to our right slept on rugs or prayer mats or something. It was all very humble and nice.
As if that wasn't enough fun, we noticed a couple on the hill near the soldier approach us. All of a sudden, we were unite to discover who these new visitors were.
"Espana, yes?" she said as their speech began to reach us.
"I think so."
"But I think this guy is Arabic," she said. The guy has silver and gray hair and was tall and robust, with a skin tone that could have been Arabic, Spanish, or anything in between. The woman with him was a full-figured brown-haired lady who looked in her early 40's, a few years younger than he. She was dressed in all blue.
They approached and he and my Bedouin friend talked in Arabic for a bit. It was about water, apparently, because the Spanish lady took a seat and he went and got her a Sprite. I seized my chance to flash a little experience.
"De donde eres?" I asked.
"De Espana."
"De donde en Espana?"
"De Madrid."
"Ahh! He vivido en Madrid en Marte y Abril," I said, already butchering her fine language.
Soon she told me she lived in the mountains, 40 minutes from Madrid, and I told her I lived in Arguelles. In fact, the guy lived on Calle Guzman del Bueno, the very street I inhabited. Ahh, what fun!
We talked a little more. The Bedouin confirmed that the dude was Arabic and bragged of her cleverness to me. I finished my pita and cheese portion and decided that if I was going to make one day enough, I had to ship off. So we took pictures, and then I took off.


"You can go to the top," the Bedouin lady told me.
"Oh, great." I smiled in silly relief.
We all said our goodbyes. And even though the altar top had very little to see besides nice views of the rest of Petra, the tide had turned enough. From that point on, I won. And it was good.

This may have been the altar. Or a child's playset.

The rest of the Petra was fulfilling if not as dramatic. I descended from the hill and further went into the city. There was an old Roman colonnaded street to see, as well as a Great Temple, which was nice even if it was festooned in "Brown University" signs, since Babs's favorite school had excavated it. One more big hike loomed to a monastery, considered the second nicest building in Petra by the brochure. (My guidebook, Fodor's Israel 2006 which also covers the side trip to Petra, was strangely silent on it. I inherited the guidebook in my room, and it has its helpful elements, but also can be a little silly).

Turning down the donkey offers and the promises that they would cut my trip in half or even more, I set off again. If the sellers had told me I was doomed to step in donkey shit the whole way up, I might have listened to them with more attention. In Petra, far worse than other places I've been, it's not so much whether you're going to step in donkey shit or not, but whether you're going to be lucky/sharp enough to step in the dryer variants that won't stick on your shoes.

A long 30 minutes climb, with a brief stop to buy a liter and a half of water and a small, crappy souvenir elephant, since the lady didn't have enough change, took me to the monastery. It was indeed quite nice. I rested, enjoyed the view of it and of the rest of the area around (later I heard you could see into the Sinai in Egypt from here, but I think it would have looked the same - desert). And then I descended, thinking I'd have enough time to make it through all of Petra and back to the bus stop in time.

The monastery. And a horse.

As it was, I did have enough time, but just barely. Feet aching, back sore, I marched on, refusing to give in to rest or donkey rides. The walk back to the Khazneh was about as long as I remembered, the walk through the Siq slightly longer even if I wasn't stopping for pictures, and the now uphill introductory section dragged on far more than I remembered from five hours ago. And yet, I made it through the gate of Petra at 4:40, which was just enough time to get a ticket on the bus, buy a sand-filled bottle with designs in it from the Indiana Jones gift shop, load up on junk food for dinner, and change t-shirts before the bus left. Sore, dirty, tired, and relieved, I was back on to Amman. Still no contact with my friends, but I'd figure that out when I got there. I hoped. Except I was too tired to care.

And of course, our bus broke down for an hour on the side of the road on the ride back. It made no difference to me.

A few more pictures:

Still fresh-faced and eager before the first climb. How foolish.

I was born for the stage! Near the Petra theater, anyway.


The view from the monastery. Possibly to Egypt.

Sandals in Petra? Not the smartest choice.