"Laurie of Arabia" in Petra

For the longest time I have wanted to see Petra – one of the seven Wonders of the World. I finally made it there and was not disappointed. First of all, the ancient city of Petra is massive! The city seems to go on for miles with hundreds of ruins to include a temple, a theater, tombs, and cave houses. It’s hard to believe the sandstone carvings on the facades of the many ruins are in such good condition today

Here is a little background:

-More than a 1000 years old

-Inside the Shara Mountains

-Capital of the Nabataean Empire 1st century BC

-Rich from trade of spices frankincense and myrrh

-The Treasury façade was carved into the rock from the top down

-Intricate facades sculptured into the sandstone cliffs

-The Romans came to Petra and took over in 63BC

-A large earthquake and changes in the trade route wiped out the city in the 4th century AD

- In 1812 a Swiss explorer Johannes Burckhardt was responsible for rediscovering Petra

The weather was wonderful with temps in the 60’s but it was very windy and many times I had to turn with my back to the wind as sand, dust and dirt flew by like a hurricane. My new scarf came in handy.

I walked down the same narrow gorge to the dramatic entry way of Al Khazna (The Treasury) as last night (about ¾ mile) but now I could see how majestic and intricate the rocky walls really were. Colors of rose (Petra is known as the Rose City), terra cotta, tan, black and white seemed to ebb and flow on each side as you walked like a lava lamp. Many times you could see carved out channels along each side of the trail which used to carry water to the various houses and temples. I loved to stop and take photos along the way, many times I was by myself as there were few tourists and Paul took a more aggressive hike off the main path. Other visitors would offer to take my photo or me taking a few for them. Naturally I had fun with different angles and techniques. As I walked the path, I tried to imagine the caravans of camels that used to transport goods such as frankincense and myrrh for trade to the city. Gosh, that must have been a site, especially given the trail was at times only 20 feet across.

Meeting up later, Paul and I spent hours in the complex and of course, couldn’t see it all. At a certain point my body couldn’t take anymore so I tried to find a different way out that would not involve a long walk uphill like the night before, however, there is only one way out for tourists, the entrance we came in. There were camels, donkeys, donkey with carriages, etc. One of the donkey guides tells me he can take me out the back way in only 25 minutes. Since the donkey rides looked the smoothest, I decided to take that route. Little did I know I would be riding up steep paved roads to a small Bedouin village. Let me just say, it wasn’t too comfortable and the guide had to walk with me the whole way because that donkey made me very nervous.

Supposedly there were normally 20,000 tourists a day at Petra and now only about 1,000. Good for us but very bad for the locals.

It was a day filled with wonder and delight, and now a lifetime dream has been fulfilled.

The narrow gorge with long exposure of a man walking through in blue

Its hard to narrow down the best photos