I am Indiana Jones

Ancient sites of the world have some ethereal power, some intangible force that inspires in me either utter awe in the face of staggering human achievement, or mild anger twisted into an energy sapping disinterest. Angkor had me completely captivated all day, walking through the incense shrouded stone corridors and ducking beneath crumbling archways both strangled and supported by nature’s great limbs. On the other hand, Stonehenge’s towering monoliths failed to inspire anything more than the dull ache of hunger that arises when my brain is unstimulated. It is sad to say that the handiwork of some incredibly determined people 5000 years ago, whose ancestors travelled all the way from Turkey, elicited nothing more than a few almost obligatory nods and grunts as I walked around. So, as I rode the bus from Amman to Wadi Musa (the town that is built around the entrance to Petra) I was unsure what to expect. I think despite being a generally optimistic person, the danger of disappointment in these circumstances was dragging me to pessimism. As we closed in on the town, we cruised through the snow covered hills that encircle the north of the Wadi Musa which was almost a magical meteorological sign that I was in for a few surprises. 

Petra’s History

Petra is nothing less than a sprawling ancient city carved straight from the mountains. The area around Petra has been inhabited since 7000 BC, but it was the Nabataeans in the 4th century BC that made Petra their home. The Nabataeans were just one of the many nomadic bedouin tribes that roamed the Arabian deserts but they decided to settle in Petra due to its proximity to trade routes and by the 2nd century BC it was their capital city. Highly skilled in stone carving and rainwater harvesting, the Nabataeans established a prosperous and highly developed city in the desert, which they defended from attack using the mountains to their advantage. And so, by the 1st century BC, the city had 20,000 inhabitants and was thriving. Soon, the might of the expanding Roman Empire swept into Jordan and they took Petra, ending the Nabataean dynasty. A Roman amphitheatre and a Roman road were constructed but as the Roman occupation continued, the need for Petra as a trading hub declined. New cities were growing in importance such as Palmyra in Syria and sea based trade routes opened up which further reduced the need for Petra. However, it remained as a religious site flourishing again under Byzantine Empire until the 6th or 7th century AD. Nevertheless, it was slowly deserted and lost to history for all but those that still dwelled in the mountainous desert. It was first “rediscovered” in 1812 and as with many of the Egyptian sites, thieves took advantage of the hundreds of long abandoned tombs. In the modern day it has become one of the 7 Wonders of the World and in 2019 Petra saw just over one million visitors, the highest in its history.

My City Escape

Entrance

After I decided to get the maximum three day ticket for Petra, I walked towards one of the most famous entrances in the world. You might not know the name, but if you’ve seen Indiana Jones riding on his way to drink from a dirty old cup then you know it. The Siq is a monumental gorge which is, at its narrowest 3m wide. Formed due to tectonic activity ripping the fabric of the mountain in two, water slowly smoothed the edges to present the incredible 1.2km long path through the towering mountain barrier that we have today. I arrived as early as humanly possible to beat the tourists but one pesky Asian couple managed to get in there before me. In January it was freezing cold, so outfitted with 5 layers I began my meandering walk towards the city. The thing that strikes you most profoundly is the shape of the walls that rise up to 180m above; billowing and rippling, yet caught in a freeze frame of their excited motion. As I walked through the Siq in the soft light of the early morning, the narrow lithified hallway was almost silent. With each step, the walls seemed to present something new, a unique stroke of nature’s brush. They funnelled my body and mind towards what I knew was coming, the most famous part of Petra, the Treasury. I knew that at any moment I would catch a glimpse. I knew that the walls that swelled and receded would soon relent and the magnificence of human endeavour would greet me. As I turned the last corner, the sunlight found its way to the walls of the Siq, reflecting as far as it could on the deeply absorbent red walls, then as the right wall curved away the Treasury revealed itself to me. Truly an awe inspiring sight, the monumental columns of the Treasury rise wth incredible precision and spread out as intricately carved capitals to meet the ornate layers above. As I emerged from the Siq and into the clearing, it was only me and two bedouins for a few minutes which allowed me to just stare up at the majesty of the whole place undisturbed. Not just a superficial rock carving, the Treasury is complex piece of craftsmanship carved deep into the sandstone rock that I would come to realise pervades through the entire city. That being said this world famous building is certainly the most elaborate, ornate and of course well known piece of Petra, a good place to start.

High Places

After passing the Treasury you walk through a short steep sided gorge which channels early morning sunlight down the main thoroughfare bringing both warmth and vibrancy to the rock faces. I kept walking, staring up from the street of facades to the countless doorways carved into the voluptuous rock. I was heading towards the first “High Place” which I’d seen on the map and had heard no one talk about. Heading towards the start I stopped, completely taken aback by the beauty of the rock face next to me. Curving away from the main trail on the right, the rock face was imbued with the rose gold light that had started to permeate through the city. The stacked columns, triangular topped entrances and ornate decorations were fractured from the millennia but their beauty was undeniable. The rock’s surface twisted and turned intensely embellishing the tombs with serpentine lines of yellow and red both inside and out. After checking them all out, with no company but a solemn donkey (which watched as I scurried about), I set off for the start of the trail. The trail was a big staircase from start to finish. The stairs, in keeping with Petra’s USP, were carved straight from the mountainside and they therefore displayed the unique qualities of the rock as I climbed. As I walked the sun rose higher in the sky and the shadows drew back to the deep recesses of the mountain. Off to the side of the path were constantly intriguing rocks and places to climb. At one such place I sat, looking over the vast majority of the main trail as the sun came up to highlight all the features I hadn’t seen in the early morning twilight. Not much further up the trail I made it to the top of Al Khubtha High Place and contemplated scrambling down a hidden narrow valley to the previous temples. But, deciding that breaking a limb on my first day would’ve been a financially reckless decision (wasting my expensive three day ticket), I returned to the stairs.

On my second day I decided to tackle another High Place, this time the High Place of Sacrifice. Much more well known yet often talked about like it’s very off the beaten track, I wanted to get up there before the hordes. However, once I tackled the steep steps that zigzagged up a dark valley I was accosted by some Bedouin ladies offering me tea. Unable to resist their offer, I sat in the sun with them and chatted as the trail grew busier. The sage tea threatened me with immediate onset diabetes with every sip but it was flowing freely. It didn’t take long for the casual tea chat to move to my marital status, their willingness to find me a Bedouin wife and their story about someone else who accepted their kind offer. Not sure that I was quite ready to live out my days in the Jordanian desert (despite the offer of my own cave house) I got up and moved on. Maybe I’ll return one day, when I’m a lonely spiteful old man and see if the offer still stands. All I’ve got to do is get old now, I’ve got the other ones down to an absolute tee. Around the corner from the ladies I found the High Place which featured an altar where animal sacrifice and libations took place, unfortunately, with the number of people up there I didn’t take in the expansive view for too long. Instead, I climbed across to a neighbouring look out where there was no altar, a bit of a climb needed and no people. As I sat there a group of people decided to stare at me and then try and work out how to get to where I was. This immediately put me off so I started the path down to the bottom. The good thing about this High Place is the circular trail so the path I headed down was new and exciting. The path clung to the mountainside much like the boy shepherds who could be seen scrambling after their goats on the sheer rock faces. At the bottom of the main staircase was the Garden Tomb where a man played the recorder outside the beautifully preserved edifice. From here the path went down gently into the valley, and past two tombs facing each other. The Roman soldier’s tomb was grand and imposing with a high ceiling inside while the one opposite was ruined on the outside but from the inside it was magnificent. It had blood red walls with regularly spaced columns and tombs hidden further into the rock between the columns. I stayed in the relative coolness of the sunken interior for a while and watched the number of people who didn’t give the tomb a second glance. This is one of the main things about Petra that I noticed, people were only interested in seeing a few things unwilling to let that childlike inquisitiveness lead them to the real treasures of the city (but more on that later).

Climbs and Castles

On the main trail past the Roman amphitheatre, the colonnaded and cambered Roman road appears. It runs past the Great Temple of Petra (the largest building in the city) which covers 7560 square metres and was completed in the first century BC. Further along is the smaller but still standing Qasr al-Bint, which was not open to the public but worth a lengthy glance as you walk past. Opposite the Grand Temple is the Byzantine church built by, who would’ve guessed it, the Byzantine Empire (after the Roman Empire decided to have a rebrand). Inside is an immaculately preserved mosaic and some peace and quiet, both beautiful things in their own right. 

From this collection of buildings the main trail continues upwards along the surprisingly taxing path to the monastery. I say surprisingly because usually theres an inverse correlation between steepness of path and number of tourists on said path. However unfortunately, everyone had read the same online rubbish about the monastery being a remotely accessed wonder so the path was full. Loud American OAP tour groups clattered along the stone with their wide brimmed hats and walking poles while flurries of Italian and German also drifted through the air. The Italian still expressive and romantic despite the breathy weight of exhaustion and the German still, well, not those things. I stormed to the top eagerly and found myself staring at the monastery. It was cool to look at but the bustling cafe was a background of idle chit chat that didn’t sit well with me, especially with my hunger beginning to rise. So, I searched around behind the cafe, finding a suitably dangerous rock to climb and had lunch on top of it, looking at the monastery unobstructed and undisturbed (except for an especially daring cat). Loving my rock so much I climbed some more and found a truly astounding view into Wadi Sayagh. Out there on a far flung rock not visible to anyone I sat in the sunshine looking at the birds soaring in between the rounded peaks and precipitous drops that were so rich and deep in colour.

Another day another adventure. Having conquered the main sights and a fair few minor unnamed tombs in the process, I was in need of something a bit more adventurous. I found a small trail on maps.me that would take me around to a castle. It started inconspicuously behind a cafe and then continued as more of a ledge than a path as it traced a wadi from the mountainside. As I rounded the mountain I found the castle and climbed the stairs which led me to a view of the Great Temple and the tombs beyond. Soon I was back down on the path and after a mini adventure beyond the trail I returned to find the start of Umm al-Biyara. This is a trail that rises to over 1000m above sea level and at its top is a plateau featuring the remains of a community dating back to the 8th century BC. The climb was beyond anything I expected, it felt so otherworldly, as if I had been thrown onto the set of Star Wars and was about to be forced to fight off some vaguely sci-fi desert bandits. Sometimes the stairs were well constructed and sometimes they were hewn into the rock but my focus was always on the views. The mountains that come to dominate your horizon at Petra gradually stooped below me, their secret summits revealed themselves and their steep walls were made ever steeper by the threat of falling. From the sloping rocky plateau at the top you could see miles into the desolate Wadi Arabah that stretches towards the Israeli border. You could see Wadi Musa sprawled on the hills behind the indomitable mountain that the Siq carves passage through. And finally, I could see tombs I hadn’t visited yet. This was my last day and I had been in every doorway or up every set of vaguely indented stairs I had found, but even three days wasn’t enough to see the whole city.

No Trail? No problem.

While hiking, judging other people had become a staple and an insatiable need for solitude became a driving force in me, so, I decided to go rogue. The childlike inquisitiveness I mentioned before was strong in me and at every door, strangely shaped rock or small valley I would bound off to discover something new. As I discovered these places I felt a sense of adventurous discovery that is almost gone in today’s world. Obviously these tombs have been discovered before but the lack of people, or even footprints, in these more secluded places made them special untouched areas of Petra. I was a less dreamy Indiana Jones for a few days. 

The first of these areas was behind the Roman soldier’s tomb. Initially, I found some hidden very worn stairs and then after climbing up I was greeted by deep burial pits at least 10ft deep. Further behind the tomb were smaller examples with some of the most striking rock formations I had seen. After watching unaware tourists walk past, I hopped down and made my way towards a large rock I had seen from the path. Once I reached it I shimmied up to get a good view. The good view actually allowed me to see into a narrow valley which was completely hidden from everywhere else, and in that valley was a door. That being enough to spike my interest, I strode over there, greedy for adventure. I scrambled down and once in the narrow dead end valley, I found myself alone staring at multiple well preserved tombs. Hidden from the world in this sunken valley I explored and climbed, I was completely in awe of the architectural treasure trove no one else was going to see. I popped back up out of the valley and my giddy eyes scanned surroundings for more. A few hundred metres away silhouetted against the mountains behind was a rocky outcrop that seemed a little too square. Once I reached it, I knew that it had been tampered with but I didn’t see any stairs to the top or any doors in the walls. I walked around the red outcrop and the ground dropped away into a small courtyard. I had been looking at the back and side walls of a tall tower-like tomb which was cut deep into the ground. I shimmied down and took a look around the courtyard which had wide steps up to it. Satisfied by my find I thought about how to get back to a track but ended up finding five more sunken tombs. 

On the way to the Umm al-Biyara trail I stopped off at a wall of interlinked and multilevel tombs that covered the rock face. Under the watchful eye of some local children I found my way into all of them without triggering any booby traps or, more likely, incurring the wrath of a particularly angry goat (often the Bedouin use the tombs as places for their livestock). I also went for a slightly prohibited walk in the nearby wadi. There was a little sign presumably saying no entry in Arabic, but deciding that the stupid tourist card could be played if necessary I went in. The sound of barking dogs echoing off every wall around you as you walk through a vertical sided canyon with no escape doesn’t provide you with the most stress free walking experience but I put my memories of the vicious Malay and Vietnamese dogs to the back of my mind and got on with it. I found a few weathered staircases and beautiful rock formations but it wasn’t long before I was back alongside the tourists on the main trail.

Finally, back near the Treasury and the Roman theatre I had a few tombs that had been begging me to explore them. I knew I couldn’t climb from the main trail up to them without arousing suspicion from the Petra guards or at least interest from other tourists. So I found a back route where I climbed through and around some hollowed out rocks until I reached the most impressive one, the Princess Tomb. The grand tomb overlooks the start of the main trail and as I poked around inside sunlight streamed through the door allowing me to see even more detail on the incredible stone. Every inch of the walls and ceiling was a lithological interpretation of Jupiter’s atmosphere, a mass of red and white so beautifully stratified. I watched the masses pour towards the exit and I was alone, sat atop my rock, bathed in light. 

Final Thoughts

So this was another long post… I think? I honestly have no idea, my Microsoft Word abandoned me (like a coward) and now I have no idea how much I’m writing. But alas, Petra was special. It’s somewhere that managed to both inspire a sense of wonder at the labours of mankind while allowing me to still marvel at the natural beauty that was there long before. Petra is truly a playground if you let yourself be a impulsive antisocial child. You don’t need to read all the history or know how to spell “Nabataeans” to get the most out of Petra, the key is blissful in its simplicity. Explore. Just go and find your own slice of this magnificent 2300 year old city where you can sit and feel connected to the people that once inhabited the place.

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