Wednesday June 12 – Aqaba

We arrived in Aqaba in Jordan at 7 am today and with no immigration problems to deal with just disembarked the ship where our bus was waiting to take us on the 2 hour drive to Petra.  This city was absolutely amazing, hidden between mountains and lost to the world until found by a Swiss traveller in the middle of the nineteenth century. 

Petra, which is surrounded by desert, was first settled by the Nebathians who were thought to have come from Yemen. Petra became their capital from the fourth century BC and it flourished until the first century AD. After this time, the Romans arrived and the Nebathians who did not like the new rules that were imposed on them had all left by the second century AD.  The Nebathians were quite clever engineers who built channels to direct the water flow.  They also built the “Treasury”, which is an ancient tomb carved into the cliff face and a 3000 seat Roman theatre.

After the two mile walk up to and through the stunning natural canyon known as the siq, we were told to close our eyes until the guide told us to open them.  When we did as directed we were presented with an amazing sight with the sun shining on the rose coloured sandstone building of the “Treasury”.  The majestic building was stunning. After this we walked further and saw the amphitheater, but did not have time to see the Monastery which is evidently worth seeing but would take another 5 hours of walking.  As it was, we ended up doing a six kilometre walk and we did not get back to the ship till 6 pm.  We had lunch at the Movenpick hotel in Petra.  This was a beautiful five star hotel, very out of keeping with the harsh lifestyle lived by the Jordanians.  They have no oil, and much of the land we travelled through was desert with not a blade of grass to be seen.  The people seem to eke out a living by herding a few goats.  However, the people we spoke to seemed happy and just want tourists to come to their land.  They kept telling us that they have many more things for us to see and do.  I can certainly recommend Petra, despite the steep incline when walking out of the siq in the hot sun.  I would not have missed this wonderful experience.

Tonight, we were entertained by an Aqaba Folkloric show, where they sang some traditional songs in Arabic.  The music was fairly monotonous and we really needed someone to tell us what the songs were about.  However, the audience showed appreciation for their efforts.