A day in Petra

The hike into the city of Petra took about 30 minutes including the Siq (you can see the beginning of the Siq and Maria below).



Due to the extreme dryness and lack of water sources, the Siq was equipped with small aqueducts all along the way. Below is a carving of a camel and its handler (only the feet are clear now). Such engravings of camels usually marked the presence of water. If you look closely, you can see the aqueduct running behind the legs of the handler and camel. You can't see it in the picture, but to the right of the handler there is a small canal that descend into a small pool area where I assume rain water was collected.





Does this look familiar to any of you Indiana Jones fans? Immediately after the Siq, you will find the "Treasury" which is the most photographed and recognized building in Petra.




If you turn right from here, you'll head towards the Street of Facades, with tombs flanking both sides.








At the very back of the city, past the trail to the Byzantine Church, we found the trail up to the Monastery. It is said that there are about 800 steps. Maria and Karla were too busy holding on to the donkey for dear life and Nate was too busy playing donkey to a demanding Anabelle to notice (so don't take our word on that number).


Too late, Maria realized this was not the brightest idea, nor the safest way to get up to the Monastery. Although she probably would have never made it up there on her own with the scorching weather, so... would she do it again? probably not. Is she glad she got to see the Monastery? Oh yeah!!




So the big smile you see on Maria here, is not because of the beautiful view, nor because she was glad to see her handsome husband again (although she was happy to see him). The smile was due to the euphoric feeling as it dawned on her all the things that could have gone wrong on that donkey but didn't. It's good to be all in one piece.


As we came around the last bend to the Monastery, the view took our breath away. It was awesome!!






We had a really long stop at the Monastery, re hydrating and having lunch. By the time we made it down it was time to start heading out.

Of course, Nathan being the energizer bunny that he is, couldn't resist hiking up to the "Urn Tomb" while Anabelle took a nap on her carrier.







Unfortunately, the day went by faster than we had planned. As soon as Nate came down we had to head out.


We were running late enough that while Nate ran through the Siq (energizer bunny, remember?), Karla, Maria and Anabelle caught a carriage at the Monastery and rode out in style (well... not really, but we'll pretend).





Anabelle and Maria were exhausted and while they regained some energy we ran into the taxi driver that drove us in from the border.



He took us back to the hostel and after a few goodbyes to our new friends (Naser and his wife, owners of the Petra Gate Hostel ***** stars for service) and a stop at the taxi driver's home for fruit punch with his family, we were headed back to the border.



It was an amazing experience, which we will not forget anytime soon.

P.S. If the pics seem a lot better than previous ones, it is thanks to Maria fiddling with her new trial version of Photoshop Elements 7 (some of the "before" and "after" pics are so shockingly different it is unbelievable). Who needs a good camera with Photoshop!