Petra, Jordan

I took a trip to Jordan with my friend Angela for the weekend. We had about 2 1/2 days, because Angela was moving to Africa, but I think we packed a lot into that time.

In Jordan, we decided that what we wanted to see most was Petra, and spent all of our time there. Petra is an ancient city that is carved entirely out of the cliffs. If you want more (or any)history of Petra, this site seems to have quite a bit. Petra itself is huge, much bigger than we expected, with tombs seeming to pop out at every corner.

The entrance to Petra is the Siq, or a long canyon (about 1km) that you walk through to get into the city. The siq itself is very beautiful, and sometimes gets as narrow as 5 m wide.

When you leave the Siq the first building you come into an opening and see the treasury--probably the most famous building in Petra. It's the best preserved, one of the most impressive, and was in Indian Jones.....all of which make it very famous.

One thing I loved about the site was the colours in the rocks. There are incredibly vibrant reds and blues everywhere. The city is also called the 'red rose city' because of the colours of the rocks (i think).

We also had gorgeous weather while we were there, even though all the forecasts were for rain and snow, and had us reconsidering our trip. We were glad we hadn't cancelled

One of the bigger sets of tombs.......

The first afternoon there we hiked up to the Monastary. I thought it was as impressive, if not more impressive, than the Treasury. But one of the reasons may be because there were so few people around. It probably doesn't get as many visitors because it's about up about 800 steps carved out of the stone, or about 30 minutes of climbing to get to it. Definitely worth the hike though.

We did more hiking on our second day there. We went to the "High place of Sacrifice" which really seemed to be a large square carved out of the rock with an alter in the middle. Not very impressive in its own, but the scenery surrounding it, and on the hike there and back was amazing.

The hike there was up (another) set of stairs, but we took a different route down, passing many large and beautiful tombs on the way back to the main city. If anyone takes a trip to Petra, we definitely recommend going off the main path....this day we saw very few other people (many just come in for quick trips to the site and don't get away from the main road) and really had the chance to explore what we found.