Jordan's Rocks, Part 5

Petra, continued...

After you get to the Treasury, you keep going to the right and you go through the actual city of Petra.

 We got some sand art done by these guys. Nathan & Wendi say that the local men dress up like Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean because they think the Western women like that... hmm... Just looks like a man wearing eye makeup to me. 

 Isn't this amazing? And Nathan told us that the locals used to live in the caves up until the Jordanian government realized they'd make boo-koos of money from Petra using it as a tourist attraction. So the government had the locals move out - in the 1960s - and into a nearby village and in exchange, they get to do all the jobs in Petra: tour guides, horse and camel and donkey rides, selling things, everything. 

 This is the theatre. Man, if we hadn't been so pooped from all the walking, I'd have loved to go in there and hear the acoustics! Even the Nabateans loved them some good shows!

 Look at the amazing colors in this cave? (The public bathrooms that they had were also made into one of the caves. The bathroom ceilings and walls were like this, too! SO cool!) 

 Joshua! 

 I was just amazed at the perfectly square carved out dwellings in the mountains. 

 Then, as you keep walking through the city and you're almost to the end, you turn back and you see these up on the mountainside. We didn't even go up there, but wow! What a cool and impressive place to live!

 I did a panorama of this area... maybe click on the picture to see it bigger?

So after you go through the city, you keep walking through a section where you see the Roman influence. You know those Romans, conquering everything they came into contact with. You get to this area called the Colonnaded Street. There's all kinds of remains around this street. I read that it was a road the Nabateans used to get to the rest of the city, but the Romans came in and paved it and straightened it and put big columns on each side.

 This is a big grand temple or something that Brown University is currently renovating or whatever archeology people do... (there was a Brown Univ. sign)

 The temple pictured above is at the top of these steps. We still had energy at this point so we were able to walk all the way up them with ease.

 The culmination of Petra is the Monastery that is at the top of the 800 steps up the mountain. Here's Joshua and I on our donkeys before we started up the mountain. Seriously, a donkey sure feels unstable. 

 You should click on this pic to see it bigger. You can see me and Joshua on our donkeys in the center of the picture/background and all the guys walking up the steps in the foreground. 

 What a view! This isn't even the top...but it's close! This is looking back on the city of Petra that we just walked through. This is about where we got off the donkeys - so maybe 600 steps or so up the mountainside.

 See all those steps?

 See, here we are. I cannot express to you how tightly I held onto that donkey! I was sore in my upper body for days! 

 And then finally, the Monastery! We arrived! This is the largest building in Petra and I bet a lot of people never even see it because the hike up to it is grueling! Nathan's friends that were with us are local but they love Jesus! They went inside and started singing praise songs in Arabic to our Creator! It was so cool to hear it echoing in the chambers. And they collected quite an audience!

 You may recognize this building from one of the Transformers movies, the 2nd one I think... Brad and Nathan had a lot of fun talking about that.

After that, after exhausting our entire water supply and all of our granola bars, we headed back down the mountain. I don't have any pictures of this because we were exhausted at this point. Walking down the mountain, then along the whole Colonnaded Street in the sunshine, then through all the sand, then up to the Treasury location, then up through the canyon back to the entrance to the canyon - well, all that about did us in! We got to the entrance to the canyon and all got on horses to ride back to the visitor's center. 

All in all, it was an amazing time! We were SO tired and SO dirty, but it was totally worth it! We are so thankful to our amazing friends, Nathan and Joshua for taking us, and Wendi for keeping Lucy so we could enjoy our day. There's no way we would've seen half of these things if we'd had Lucy with us. Precious Lucy, but she wouldn't have made this trip! 

Petra = amazing. Go see it! (And Ride a Donkey up the mountain!)