March 23 – Al'Aqabah (Aquaba) & Petra, Jordan. This is a new port for us as well as a new country. Aquaba is the only port that Jordan has. It's basically a land locked country. If you look at the north end of the Red Sea you can see two smaller bodies of water sticking up like rabbit ears. The one on the left leads to the Suez Canal. The one on the right is the Gulf of Aquaba. It's bordered by four countries, Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The Sinai Desert of Egypt makes up the west shore of the ear. Elat in Israel is almost directly at the top. Going east from there there's a thin strip that belongs to Jordan and that's the location of Aquaba. From there on down the east coast belongs to the Saudis.
Aqaba has been a port city since at least the Iron Age. Israel, during the reign of King Solomon, had a ship building location near the present city. It rose to prominence when a railway was built to connect Aquaba with Damascus, Syria. Today the city is still primarily involved in shipping. They have built a ferry terminal here that connects it to Egypt on the western shore. It carries thousands of cars and trucks as well as 1.3 million passengers.
The reason cruise ships come to Aquaba is to allow the passengers to visit Petra and that's exactly what we intend to do. Petra is a city carved out of the rocky cliffs. The Nabataeans, who inhabited it, were not happy to just have caves. They carved whole building into the rock face. It's also called the Rose City due to the color of the sedimentary rock it's carved into. It was the Nabataeans' capital city and is now a symbol of Jordan and its most visited tourist attraction.
As we were pulling into Aqaba's port I was a little surprised to see how close we were to Elat, Israel. It's really just across the small tip of the Gulf of Aqaba from Aquaba. You could almost think one was the suburb of the other. I realized that, standing on the deck of the Rotterdam I could see Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The north tip of the Gulf is a crowded place. Of course, most of the land I can see is in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Jordan and Israel have just a narrow strip of the shore. In the past Elat has been mainly a resort city while Aqaba has been mainly a port. Israel won't use Elat as a port because Israeli ships would have to go through narrow waters lined with hostile countries to get there whether they came from the north or the south. On the other hand, Aqaba has been declared a duty-free zone and has attracted not only a lot of businesses but also a lot of tourists and is becoming an important resort city as well as a port.
It's hard to decide if I should write a background paragraph or two before plunging into the travel narrative or just go for it. When I first visited the Cairo Museum and then the temples at Luxor or when I had my first cruise stop in Viet Nam I encountered the same perplexing situation. I couldn't decide how to start so I couldn't seem to write at all. Maybe I'll do what I did then and just work on my pictures for a while and let my subconscious solve the dilemma. Well, it's about 6 hours later and I've decided to do a bit of background and then just jump in.
Petra is located in a valley that has easy access north to the Dead Sea but limited access to the Gulf of Aquaba. It was established in the early 300sBC and it was unknown to the most of the world until Johan Burckhardt came onto it in 1812. Later it was called "a rose city, half as old at time" in a prize winning poem. UNESCO described it as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage" and made it a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985,
Petra's founders, the Nabataeans, were traders and operated caravans out of Petra. It is protected by having limited access. The only way in from the south is through a narrow passage called the Siq. To the north it was a very long way to anywhere and you had to come through a wadi to get to the city. A formal fortress was unnecessary because the city was so well located. It controlled the main trade routes which had to pass through it to get to Gaza (west), Damascus (North), Aquaba (south on the Red Sea) and to the Persian Gulf (east). If you shipped to the port of Aquaba you had to go through Petra.
Petra is located in a valley that is lower than the surrounding hills and I do mean surrounding. The bowl of mountains is broken up by at least nine wadis, both large and small. (A wadi is a dry valley that during rains becomes a river.) Petra is like the drain in your sink, all the water from miles around heads there when it rains. The Nabataeans devised a unique way of controlling the water that at first ran through the center of their city and during flash floods would cause a great deal of damage. Essentially they created a man-made oasis. They developed a series of dams, waterways and cisterns to control and save the water for use later. In one case they dug a tunnel through solid rock to redirect the water from flowing through the city. They were so successful at this endeavor that, even in periods of drought, they had excess water to sell and created another source of income.
Since wadis usually have a soft sand bottom and walking in them can be tiring. We came into Petra from the east, following the route that the caravans from Aqaba took. They came north following Wadi Musa (camels work fine in sand with their snowshoe like paws), the easiest way from the sea to this area. Incidentally Wadi Musa means 'Valley of Moses' in Arabic. Nearby is the Ain Musa (Spring of Moses). It is believed this spring was formed when Moses struck the rock to bring forth water. Problem is Wadi Musa does not lead into Petra. As you come up Wadi Musa you are gaining altitude. At the top of Wadi Musa, to reach Petra, the caravans had to negotiate a winding narrow gorge call the Siq (the Shaft in Arabic). The Siq is only a little over 9 feet wide in some places, in others it's 10-20. Some of the sides of the Siq are over 150 feet high. This natural geological feature formed from a deep split in the sandstone rocks and served as a waterway flowing out of the top of Wadi Musa and into Petra. To keep it free of water the Nabataeans carved a separate water channel all along the Siq. This allowed the caravans to use the gorge regardless of the weather.
But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. It took two hours to drive to the top of Wadi Musa from the port. The drive is continually gaining altitude, sometimes slowly but always up. We were passing through very arid country. As we progressed inland sandstone outcroppings appeared above the sand. These were mainly in two colors, tan and red. Sometimes the two colors were arranged in stripes both vertical and horizontal. These eventually started getting larger until they constituted foothills more than outcroppings. Part way up we stopped at an overlook to check out the colorful foothills. It reminded me of some of the parks in Utah. As we went farther inland they became mountain ranges. Eventually we reached the town of Wadi Musa, where our guide lives. Our busses dropped us off in the large bus lot and we walked down to the entrance to the Petra Archeological Park. After getting our tickets we started our walk into Petra.
The first place we passed was the Petra Guest House Hotel where we will be having lunch. Next we came to the horse cart area. Here, those who can't or don't want to make the 1.6 kilometer (about ¾ of a mile) walk to the end of the Siq and the start of Petra can hire a two-person horse cart to take them down to the end of the Siq. The round trip down and back up is $40 but they will ask for another $5-10 "for the horse" which I'm sure they scrupulously pass on to him. Our guide warned us that if we don't want to walk up from Petra and hire a horse cart for the ride up, the charge will be exactly the same $40+the horse's cut. There's no discount for one-way. The Siq is an interesting place and does have some Nabataean and pre-Nabataean items to see so Diana and I elected to walk.
The first 400 yards or so is in open space referred to by the Bedouins as Bab el-Siq (Gate of the Siq in Arabic). You can tell you are going downhill already but it's not very steep. On the left side are stables where you can get a horse to ride down to the beginning of the Siq, only about 400-600 meters so if you've ridden horses before this is not an attractive offer, the ride is too short.
While walking that fairly short distance we encountered our first Petra remnants, the Djinn Blocks. These blocks of varying shape are carved out of the sandstone outcroppings. Some are very plain, consisting of a small block atop a larger block. Some are more ornate with carvings on the sides in the form of temple like columns. The columns are carved in relief only, they are never fully formed on all sides and the blocks remain solid. They are named for a type of spirit from Arab folklore. The local Bedouins believed these blocks were inhabited by the Djinn. More recent researchers now believe these monuments were memorials or tombs for the dead. Scattered in the rocks near these blocks there are small, fairly crude cave tombs. These would have been the final resting place for the poorer classes and are the oldest tombs in Petra, from around the 2nd century BC.
The first ornately carved tombs are just a little down the way from the blocks and it's a double header, the Obelisk Tomb & the Bab el-Siq Triclinium. These tombs are arranged on a limestone hillside, with the Obelisk Tomb above the. The Obelisk Tomb is named for the four elongated pyramid shaped nefesh (Nabataean symbols commemorating the deceased) arranged on a ledge above the entrance. This tomb goes about 12 yards deep into the limestone rock. Inside is an open chamber around which there were 5 burial sites carved into the walls, 2 in each side wall and one in the end wall. The central chamber was large enough that at least 5 more sarcophagi could have been place there without being crowded. It had its own water basin caved out of the rock and a water cistern.
The Bab el-Siq Triclinium is a little more complex. The face of the tomb is carved a significant way back into the rock leaving flat surfaces facing each other in front of the carved face of the tomb, sort of like the wings of a main building might extend further towards the street. The Tri in the title comes from the fact that the tomb has three entrances leading to separate spaces. The door in the center carved space leads to the largest tomb. The door to the left of the main door leads to a smaller space and the door on the right, caved into the rock surface left then the tombs face was carved into the rock leads to a slightly larger space than the one on the left but still very simple. Because I can see the confusion on your faces from my description, I'll recap. As you stand facing the large carved face of the tomb, there's a large entrance directly in front of you. To the left is a smaller entrance also carved into the face of the tomb. The odd on is on the right. To face this door directly you would have to turn 90˚ to the right because that entrance is carved into rock left when the main face was carved deep into the rock. Probably didn't need to say all that because you will see the picture at the top of this entry before you read it.
A little way past these tombs the Bab el-Siq ends and the Siq begins. At the top of the Siq the Nabataeans had a rather large dam to hold some of the water that would have otherwise flowed down the Siq. They still call this area the Dam. The local Bedouins call it Bab As-Siq (Gate to the Siq). The valley narrows very quickly into a gorge. The Park has posted two men dressed as ancient soldiers with helmets, shields and lances. At this spot there was a Triumphal Arch over the narrow gap. You can still see the niches and the start of the arch on the right hand side. The mixture of red and yellow/tan limestone in the rocks is striking.
From here on down into Petra you are in the Siq. The gorge narrows and then widens and then narrows again. You have to be a bit careful as the horse carriages are going in and out of Petra and in the narrow spots there's not much extra space. Fortunately because the gorge is so narrow and made of stone you can hear the horse hooves clopping on the trail long before they get to you. The drivers earn based on the number of trips so they are moving pretty quickly. Oddly enough many people don't get the implications inherent in the rapidly approaching hoof beats and the drivers have to yell, "Beep beep!" to get the numbskulls to move over. Sort of gave me a flashback to Mumbai with all the beeping going on.
It's hard to say how long the Siq is because you can never see very much of it at one time. I'd guess that it's about a kilometer, a bit more than half a mile. The colorful cliff face and the artifacts carved into them gave you a lot to look at. In one particularly curvy section we came upon the remnants of a camel caravan relief. The camel driver's feet and the camel's paws stand on the outer ledge of the old drainage system so for the first four feet they are fully carved. When the carvers reached the rock above the system the style returns to relief. All that remains of the carving is the driver from the waist down and a camel's front and back paws and ankles. In the rock above the gap you can see the camel's body but everything else has eroded away. The sandstone is not particularly hard in this area although some parts of it seem much less eroded than others. Could be that some of the carvings are sheltered from the rain.
After the camel caravan carving the Siq really narrows and twists until suddenly, in the light across the canyon you can see a sliver of a beautiful building carved out of solid rock, the Treasury. It's called the Treasury because the later Bedouins who knew about it thought there was a fortune in gems and coins in the urn at the top. The hundreds of bullet holes resulted from their efforts to dislodge the urn or break it releasing the riches to fall to the valley floor. It was actually built as a tomb of an important Nabataean king. Some scholars believe it was later used as a temple. It's massive. The façade is 100 feet wide and 141 feet tall. The unweathered sandstone of the carved part is either a rosy pink or pinkish orange. You decide. Without humans in the picture for scale it would look small but in reality it's as tall as a 14 story building.
It has two levels. The ground level looks much like a Greek temple as it has columns with capitals and a parapet over the porch. Everything is adorned with carved figures and decorations. The lintel is carved with what looks like wind goblets and vines. The capitals on the columns are very ornate, much like Corinthian capitals. The upper level has a cylindrical center section flanked by two rectangular sections. Each section has four columns; the front two are almost entirely relieved, the back two are only half relieved. On the surfaces between the columns there are remnants of reliefs that appear to be humans or gods. They are quite weathered and very smooth. The lintels connecting the tops of the columns are carved with garlands of fruit, flowers and leaves.
The round central section has a series of spikes around the top that are said to be the Crown of Isis and above that is the urn that was the focus of so many riflemen trying to collect the treasure. It's a striking sight the most well preserved and impressive artifact in Petra.
We turned right at the Treasury and continued down deeper into the city. Around the next corner we came to a place where both sides of the canyon were carved with tombs. This area is called the 'Street of Facades'. Some were very plain, kind of just an upright rectangular face with a hole for the entry. Others were more ornate and had temple like shapes. One in particular caught my eye. Not because of the shape or the ornate carving but because the limestone rock in that area was swirled with color lines. Dark red, rose red, yellow, cream and tan stone mixed together in such beautiful designs that you almost missed the fact that this was one of the more intricate tombs on the street. It had columns and a lintel with parapet but all that was obscured by the colorful rocks.
Just past the Street of Facades you come to the city's theater. Most of it is carved into solid rock but the very front of both sides is freestanding. Besides carvers there must have been some masons in the city. It can hold about 7,000 people. It looks Roman but was carved by the Nabataeans in the 1st century AD.
Further down the wadi opens up and you find the city center. Since this area was not carved in stone but constructed like most cities, not much remains. On the main street you can see the remains of the columns that lined both sides of it. We didn't really have enough time to go any farther and be sure we'd get back in time for lunch and the bus
We decided to ride donkeys back to the Treasury and walk out from there. As we walked up the Siq it was pretty tiring. I'd say we got about 2/3 of the way up when Diana started to need some rest about every 110 yards or so and the only reason I didn't sit down was that I knew I would begin to stiffen up if I didn't remain standing. One or two horse carts drove past us going into the Siq to their stopping point at the Treasury. I decided to see if I could flag one down and ride the rest of the way up.
Sure enough a wave of my hand brought one of them to a stop. I asked if he would take us the rest of the way up to the top. He said yes, $40. The guide wasn't kidding when he said that they have a flat rate, two ways, one way or apparently even part way, it's $40. We said ok and hopped aboard. You couldn't tell from watching them but the ride is very bumpy. I took some video on the way up to memorialize our ride.
The great thing about riding up is that we were among the first to get to the hotel. No waiting in the restroom and no long lines at the buffet. Diana would add, and more time to shop. By that she wouldn't mean buy, just look.
Lunch was good but it wasn't Jordanian food. Everything was pretty European except maybe the roast lamb. Most of the deserts are about the same as they have on the ship so I skipped that completely.
Diana did some looking in the shops and I talked to some of the ship's crew that got to go with us. Several of the band members were traveling together. The HALCats band is very good. I'm amazed that with so little rehearsal they are able to play complex charts that the performers bring with them. I'm not a fan of performers using pre-recorded music in their acts. For some it's necessary but if all they need is a band I like it when they use the HALCats.
I've always wanted to visit Petra but was not sure I ever would. It's an ancient place. It's listed in records of Egyptian war campaigns. In Biblical times the Horites and then the Edomites lived in this area. Josephus (an early historian), Eusebius and Jerome (Both early church fathers) mention the place as do the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Petra declined rapidly under Roman rule partly because the trade routes were now sea-based. In 363 an earthquake destroyed many of the buildings and severely damaged the water handling system. Later the Arabs took over the area and that ended the city's activity.
T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, was here rallying the Arabs against the Ottoman Empire on behalf of the British. The revolt of Syrians and Arabians in the Petra area distracted the Ottoman forces and allowed the British to drive them out.
When we arrived back at the ship the line to go aboard was almost as long as the ship. That's what happens when you send 10-11 busses on the same tour. They arrive back at the port very close together and things back up. Oh well the weather is cool, we're in the shade. No big deal.
Our performer was Richard Bono, a comic juggler. I'm not a fan of mimes and jugglers but I went anyway. He was very entertaining and I enjoyed it despite my prejudices.
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