Jordan – Petra
Petra has been made famous by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The movie has a part with the Petra treasury where Indiana goes up on horseback to this place in the middle of the desert and finds this crazy structure carved into the rock. He has to crawl through an obstacle course to get to the Holy Grail. I think the last time I watched it was on Dad’s laser disc player. Crazy!
Petra was amazing! The structures were carved into the mountain by the Nabateans in the 5th century BC. They haven’t left any inscriptions (or at least none that have lasted) so archaeologists don’t know much about the people or the purpose of the buildings.
This is our group pausing in the canyon leading to the ruins for the 100th to listen to our VERY long winded tour guide.
Indiana Jones in front of the treasury...
Me in front of the treasury!
Most people rode donkeys up to the monastery on top of one of the hills. Somehow I ended up walking, which was stupid… The hike to the top had over 800 stairs carved into the mountain which is less than the number steps I do when I go with Ken to run the RB stairs, but it was over 110 degrees outside so really a different experience.
These are the guides that lead the donkeys up the mountain. This kid speaks impressive English but he's a Bedouin so he lives in a tent in the mountains, herds goats all day and will never go to school. I have videos to post, he's darling.
After exploring the Monastery a group of us looked for the 2 geocaches in the area. Our search took us up the other cliff to The High Place. By the time we got to the top of the mountain we were too exhausted to find the exact cache location but it there were some amazing views from the top!
Up on the high place with Jowy and Trevor
Walking down from the Monastery with Whitney.
I really wish I had my visor! My face got a beating from the sun.
The day ended with a crazy mad dash back through the town of Petra and up the canyon to make it to the bus on time. I felt pretty destroyed by the time I got back on the bus and during our 3 hour drive to Amman.
The first building I saw after arriving in Amman was the Ernst & Young office. Wouldn’t that be crazy to do a rotation in Jordan?? Maybe someday, the opportunities are endless at this point.
1 comment:
Awesome pics at Petra. Were you tempted to get inside just to see if the Holy Grail really is there? Although I guess it fell into a pretty deep crevice at the end of the movie. And how sad that little kid is so bright and mastered a second language but won't ever go to school.
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