Petra – The Rose Red City

When I booked to visit Petra in Jordan, known as the rose-red city, I believed it would be a beautiful collection of buildings. But I had no idea how stunning it would be. My two days there were the two best days of my life. We had a great guide, Sammi, who was so knowledgeable about the history of Petra and the latest archaeological discoveries, and he made it a really special experience.

Petra The Rose Red City

To get into Petra we walked down a long path, with rocks and hills on either side. There was a gravel track to our left, with lovely Arabian horses walking gently with tourists riding them – or galloping along ridden by Bedouins. I love horses, so that was an added joy for me. Gradually the landscape changed and we started walking through a deep narrow gorge. The rock surfaces are beautiful, mainly rose coloured, with fascinating carvings, and deep channels carved into the rock to let the rain drain into storage pools so that the Nabataean people had water all year round. If you walk fast, you can get into Petra in half an hour, but we took two hours the first time, learning about the history and exhilarated by the beauty of the gorge. Sometimes it was quite lively, as some tourists ride in carriages over large stone slabs which bounce them around and make the journey quite tough!

At the end of the rift valley, we saw our first glimpse of The Treasury, lit by the sun. It is the most famous building in Petra. As we walked past it, with huge rock faces on either side, we saw more and more buildings, all carved out of the rock. That was when I began to realize that this was not just an ordinary city. As the land opened out, we found ourselves in a huge valley, with stunning tombs and buildings around us, and an amphitheatre as well. And this city had been built more than 2,000 years ago by the Nabataean people.

There was so much to see, and several ways to get there around. Walking, of course. But some of the sights are at the top of 900 steps. So the first time I wanted to climb the mountain, I decided to ride a donkey. The owner asked me if I could ride and I said “Yes, I’ve got my own horse.” So he handed me the reigns and the little brown donkey decided he wanted to win the race to the top! I thought we’d be going up a track, but we trotted up steep steps, with deep crevasses alongside them and other donkeys and people to overtake. It took 20 minutes, with the donkey’s owner running along behind trying to keep up, and it was the most exciting ride I’ve ever had. At the top, once I got my breath back, I walked to a beautiful temple and along tracks through grassland to the edge of the mountainside.

I decided to walk down. Racing a donkey up hill was fun, but I didn’t fancy coming down that way.

It gave me time as well to look at the view across the valley. When I got down, I told the donkey-man that I now wanted to ride a camel, and he pointed out his cousin with an orange head-dress on, who helped me onto his camel – and he handed me the reigns too. I’ve never ridden a camel before, but off we went and I really enjoyed it. As we started back towards The Treasury, the camel-man started running behind me whooping, so my camel started trotting and it was quite exciting. When we got there, the camel-man took a photo of me with The Treasury in the background, and the camel turned his head, looked at the camera and posed.

With memories of my racing donkey, I rode another one through the gorge to get back to the hotel. He was much calmer and very obedient. We had to avoid being run down by the horses and carriages and walking into tourists who were gazing upwards, riveted by the rock faces.

So my first visit was a day of amazing and beautiful surroundings, and fun too.

The next day, we were taken to Little Petra, which also originated more than 2,000 years ago. It’s a small village, in a narrow valley with sand coloured rocks and lots of trees and flowering shrubs. It’s where people travelling through the area were invited to stay, and all the homes were caves carved out of the rocks. One cave had a beautiful mural and painted ceiling. There were channels carved in the rocks there too, to preserve rainwater. Nearby was a valley with bright green crops, which we walked through with some Bedouin children who made us welcome. One little boy gave me a bunch of wildflowers and his sister walked with me holding my hand. At the end of the valley was an ancient ruined village, probably the oldest in Jordan.

The Treasury Petra

In the afternoon, I walked into Petra on my own. It was quite quiet that day, with very few tourists, and it was breathtaking. Literally! I walked up the 900 steps this time to find the Sacrificial Rock at the top of the mountain. When I got there (yes, I did) I stopped for a cup of tea with a Bedouin girl. Her name was Hannan. She walked with me up to the Sacrificial Rock, and the view in all directions was fabulous. You could see the buildings in Petra in one direction and the surrounding hills on the other. Then she asked me if I would like to walk with her out of the valley, not through the tourist route but around the rocks and hills. I said yes. Our guide Sammi had told us that the Bedouins had all sorts of secret ways in and out of Petra.

It was a wonderful walk, which took over an hour. We only passed one man with two donkeys, otherwise it was deserted. I climbed up and down steep rocks, with Hannan holding my hand and carrying my handbag. She found me some pretty rocks with fossilized flower patterns in them. We walked through a valley, where she often sleeps at night in the summer to save her having to walk home every night. She told me about her life. She was born in a cave, but now lives with her widowed mother and 4 younger sisters and brothers in a flat provided by the government outside Petra. She is the only one who earns money to support her family, selling jewellery to tourists. In the valley, she picked some herbs and when we got near the gate she took me to a cave where a man makes tea for the Bedouin workers and we had tea with the herbs in it. What a joyful walk.

I got back to my hotel around 5 o’clock, changed and then went into Petra again for a really special evening put on for my tour group. The track through the gorge was lit with candles on the ground, and the square in front of The Treasury was covered in a sea of candles. We all sat on rocks, spellbound. Then we heard the music begin, a pipe played by a man sitting quietly among the candles. When he finished, he walked off. Then we heard the faint sound of a violin style instrument, and a musician came out of The Treasury. It was so moving.

Then we walked right through the Petra valley again, along a candle-lit path. And we arrived at the tourist restaurant. We had a buffet dinner – and then had another surprise, a group of Bedouin musicians and dancers, all of them men. The dancing was great and I was dying to get up and join them, but I thought “No, this is a Muslim country, a lady can’t do that.” Suddenly one of the dancers came up to me, took my hand and lead me into the group. He picked out a few more of us and we all danced with the Bedouin dancers for 20 minutes.

When the evening ended, we were picked up in open-backed jeeps and were driven back to the hotel through the countryside, with spectacular stars in the sky above us.

When I got to my hotel, I lay on my bed feeling overwhelmed with the fantastic experience of those two days. And I said to myself “See Petra, and die!”

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About the author: Angie Sanderson is a member of Deal Writers group in Deal, Kent. Retired now and writing. I worked in BBC TV, subtitling for Channel 4 for deaf people programmes and foreign films, then took up job as medical secretary/receptionist.

Tags: deal writers, Deal writers Kent, Jordan, Petra, Tourism Brittany, Travel writers Brittany, travel writers France, Travel writing france, writers groups kent, writers in France, writing groups in France

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 at 10:39 am and is filed under Travel & Tourism, View all Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.