PETRA - RED ROSE CITY OF THE DESERT
*originally published in Cruise and Travel Lifestyles, Fall 2011
By Tin Thomas
THE KINGS HIGHWAY is an ancient route that cuts through the heart of Jordan, one of the most fascinating countries in the Middle East, taking the traveler on an intriguing voyage of discovery. History crowds in on all sides as the road sweeps past desert forts, Roman ruins, Crusader castles, early Islamic towns, and even Stone Age villages.
Linking Amman, Jordan’s capital, with Aqaba, its only port, the modern, 335-kilometer highway is believed to be the route Moses sought as he led his people north to the Holy Land from Edom, in what is now outhern Jordan. According to Genesis, it’s the way that four kings from ‘the south’ took to attack the doomed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The camel trains and warriors of the past have been replaced by thundering container trucks rolling along a highway that is sometimes six lanes wide, distributing goods throughout Jordan and several neighboring countries, and coaches delivering travelers to some of the region’s great archaeological sites. But move away from the highway and you step back many centuries.
Look at what has happened to the once quiet little hill-bound town of Wadi Musa, where a whole tourism industry has sprung up. It’s an hour and a half’s drive from Aqaba, three from Amman; it’s changing fast and stylish modern hotels are springing up because, hidden deep in the weirdly weathered rocky hills outside the town, is one of the world’s most mysterious ancient treasures, the ‘rose red’ city of Petra,
where more than 2,000 years ago the Nabateans, an industrious Arab people, settled in south Jordan.
Petra, in 2007 voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, was lost in the desert for more than a thousand years until its re-discovery in 1812 by Swiss explorer Johann Burckhardt. Its approach is stunning: it’s reached via a narrow siq, a rocky gorge more than a kilometer long, flanked by 300-ft high walls that almost touch at some points, and opening out to a natural square.
We chose to take a horse and buggy to navigate the siq but had to wonder whether we’d made the right decision as the horse slipped and skidded and the buggy clattered along the stone path, wreaking terminal damage on its primitive springs while we clung on for dear life. Surely the camel would have been more comfortable!
Suddenly, around the last bend and framed by the walls of the siq we caught breathtaking sight of what appeared to be a tall porticoed building; this is the 130-ft tall Al Khazneh, the Treasury, Petra’s most famous monument and technically not a building at all because it is carved into the living red rock of the cliff face.
If it looks familiar, you’re probably right. It was used as the location where Harrison Ford discovered the Holy Grail in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Inside there is no grail, just one large and three small rooms, and despite years of speculation archaeologists have still not agreed whether this was a temple, a town hall or had some other function. It’s been called The Treasury for years because the structure is topped by a giant carved urn which was believed to hold a rich pharaoh’s treasure. It seems not! Another popular theory is that The Treasury was once a Nabatean king’s tomb.
This is just the beginning of the wonders Petra holds. Into the slopes of Mount Hor, the Nabateans carved an entire city out of the sandstone in this narrow desert gorge – houses, temples, royal tombs even a 3,000-seat, Romanstyle theater. To see and absorb everything would take days and require a considerable
amount of stamina and agility to climb the steps that head off in all directions like some giant snakes and ladders board.
The colors are remarkable. There’s not a touch of green in sight and through the day, as the sun moves across the sky, the shades of red, pink, orange and brown change and the unearthly rock formations alternately glow in the sunlight and sink into a sullen brown when the clouds roll across. Early morning and evening are when the colors are at their richest.
There’s a Place of Sacrifice high on a hill, the remains of an elaborate system of piped water, a colonnaded street and a temple hacked from the stone. Tombs dug into the rock are everywhere and the more athletic visitors climb the rocks like ants on a watermelon while the rest of us pace the ‘streets’ … making sure to stay well clear of the dozens of brightly-decorated camels for hire that share the space with us.
The Treasury and the Monastery are the largest monuments here and although there is much to see – and a good guide is a no-brainer – Petra poses more questions than you’ll find answers for. There is no way to ascertain when the story of Petra began. Its roots are lost in history and drenched in superstition and legend and fantasy but it does seem that the city’s decline came during Roman times and it would have been in the century or so after then that it was swallowed by the sands of the desert.
Many people visit Petra on day trips from Amman, from Aqaba or from some of the increasing number of cruise ships that now dock in Aqaba (we arrived on an excursion from Silversea’s Silver Whisper). This makes for a hurried visit, no chance for you to unravel the mystery of this haunting place. Much better to spend at least one night in the vicinity of the old city and there are several excellent western-style hotels at hand.
Right outside the gates of Petra is a modern Möevenpick Hotel, with all the creature comforts and an excellent restaurant. Nearby there is also a Crowne Plaza Resort, the Marriott Petra, on a hillside overlooking the valley of Petra, and the Sofitel Petra Taybet Zaman, whose ‘Bedouin-styled rooms’ might help the visitor immerse himself or herself more deeply in what is an incredible desert experience. There are also plenty of smaller, local hotels.
Along the road back to Aqaba, on a barren plateau on the Sharah Mountains, small rock piles mark the burial place of some of the 11,000 Ottoman soldiers who were killed fighting the Bedouin in the great Arab Revolt of 1917-18; the Bedouin casualties amounted to only 3,000 as they fought under the leadership of the man who took them to independence, Emir Faisal. 
Between Petra and Aqaba, it’s well worth spending a little time at Wadi Rum, a bleak stretch of desert which played a great part in modern Jordanian history as the base from which some of Faisal’s forces, led by the famous British army officer T.E. Lawrence – better known as Lawrence of Arabia – once operated. There’s a visitor center there and guides to spin some fascinating stories of Lawrence’s exploits (see separate story below).
Jordan’s tourism is on its way back to pre 9/11 levels, at which time it dropped off sharply. And the country is undergoing the changes inevitably brought by a young population – two thirds of the country’s six million inhabitants (one million of those are Iraqi refugees) are under the age of 26. Visitors to Jordan get a friendly welcome, there are exciting places to visit and if you want to immerse yourself in the desolate beauty of the Arabian Desert, this is the place to be.
WADI RUM… DESERT LAIR OF LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
The legend of Lawrence of Arabia will live on and on and visitors to Jordan and the popular Petra region will continue to be drawn to Wadi Rum, the barren desert region between the port of Aqaba and the Rose Red city to its north because this was, for some time, Lawrence’s base of operations as he led King Faisal’s Arabs in attack after attack on the Ottoman army. Lawrence, the enigmatic, Welsh-born British army officer, was officially a liaison officer with Faisal’s army, but he became the scourge of the Turks, staging lightning raids against their forces and a vital rail link, eventfully running them out of Jordan.
The Wadi is a wide, wild valley, flat and dry, punctuated by massive rocky outcrops that look like mighty castles strewn about the desert; everything is on the grand scale. Describing the Wadi in his classic memoir The Seven Pillars of the Wisdom, Lawrence said: “The Arab armies would have been lost in the length and breadth of it, and within the walls, a squadron of aeroplanes could have wheeled in formation.
The visitor center here is a starting point for the adventurous who can take off into the wilderness for day trips or camping expeditions on horseback, by camel or by 4WD vehicle. There are tented camps for visitors, who can also choose to stay in a traditional Bedouin tent. There is still the odd traditional Bedouin encampment identifiable by the black tents made of goat hair. Guides will show you ‘Lawrence’s spring’, where he is said to have come for water, and tell you how he would lead the Arab forces out of the wadi to terrorize the Turks, then fall back to the safety of the remote corners of this mysterious, solemn place.
