Petra

We spent a day and a half in Petra and this was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. It was an adventure getting there from Aqaba though. It is about a 2 hour drive to Petra and taxis were telling us they would take us for about $60. Instead, there were buses that would go for about $7 each, so we decided to do that instead. The bus system works differently than the American system though. In Jordan they have large vans that seat 15 to 20 people. These vans are privately run and they only leave when they are full. So we found one that was leaving to Petra and got on at about 9 am. After waiting for about 2 hours the driver approached us and said it may be a little while still, but if we wanted to pay him $7 more each he would go right then. We negotiated some and finally decided on about $3 more each. But as soon as he had his money he got on his phone and made a few calls and the van was all the sudden 3/4 of the way full. Then he drove around the block and picked up another group of people and then every seat was filled. We felt cheated, but as we looked around and saw all the poverty there we didn't mind too much.

Here is a picture of the buses/vans




The drive was right through the middle of the desert. Every once in a while we would see a small little village and wonder how it could survive with only sand surrounding it. We would also see some small houses all alone just made out of wooden pallets or other scrap material.

We got to Petra at about 1 pm. The start of it is a little museum and lots of different shops. They had a few warning signs that I thought were really funny.



The picture on the bottom right says "John should have thought about his size and the animal's welfare before taking a ride."

From the entrance it is about a 1/4 mile walk to the Siq. Before the Siq there are a few cool tombs to look at. This was all out in the sun though so we didn't spend too much time looking at these (these are from the second day at 6 am, that .











After about 5 pictures my Surface shut down and when I tried to turn it on a thermometer showed up indicating it was too hot. We are thinking it was over 110 outside. I was worried I wouldn't get any pictures of Petra after that. Luckily we had some cold water in my backpack and we put it next to that. It cooled off enough to work again, but we tried to use it sparingly.

The Siq was probably the most amazing part of Petra. Think of the canyon that they rode through in Indiana Jones and the Search for the Holy Grail. That is the Siq. It reminded me a lot of the canyons in southern Utah, but skinnier and taller. Whereas most canyons are made by a river slowly eroding the walls away, the Siq was made by a massive earthquake. I guess this was the fault line and it just opened up in the earthquake. Some spots were probably about 50 feet wide and others maybe just 15 feet wide. We got to walk through it four different times, and were amazed each time. Back in the first century when Petra was in its prime, there were water channels on both sides of the canyon that would carry water to the city. Although this is the entrance that tourists use now, I guess it was just an entrance for religious ceremonies in the past.

Sorry for all of the pictures, it was just really impressive.




























Right as you exit the Siq you see the Treasury. This was just a tomb with a small inner part, but a very impressive exterior that was carved into the mountains. All throughout Petra were these tombs carved into the mountains. The Treasury one isn't the biggest, but because of its location it has sustained the least damage to it from wind and rain. It is impressive how sharply cut some of the stone lines still are even after 2,000+ years. We couldn't go inside it because it was all blocked off with police guards at the entrance. I am guessing they didn't want a ton of people trying to get the holy grail.





After the Treasury we decided to walk to the Monastery which is at the very far end of the park. It was a six mile walk each way with almost 800 stairs. What made it worse was the heat. We did bring a couple water bottles to help us on the way and we ended up going through 12 refills on them. All along the trail there were kids offering us camel/donkey rides which sounded tempting, but we decided to just do it all on our own.









At the top of the Monastery we took a break to catch our breath and enjoy the view of the Arabian desert. While we were resting there some daredevil started to climb the Monastery building. He was jumping from one part to the next even though there was probably a 50 foot drop if he fell. The Monastery is the biggest of the buildings that were carved into the mountain in Petra. It had tombs in it too, but I guess they also used it as a church over the years.

From the Monastery we slowly made our way back seeing all of the tombs and other ancient ruins along the way. It was amazing to explore them. Lots of the time it seemed like we were the only ones around and so I am not sure if we were supposed to go into all of the places that we went in to. But there were thousands of caves and you could probably spend a month just exploring the whole park.

This was a stadium that they cut into the mountain. If I am remembering right it would seat over 4,000 people.





This was their temple complex. It sounds like it didn't really have a temple in it, but was more of their government offices and bath houses and things like that.






This was their big church. It was built exactly square. It is pretty much the only building that was not carved into the mountain that still stands. Rebecca and I explored it and found a stairway inside one of the walls. It just went up to a window about 2 stories off the ground.



A few more tombs











They called this one the royal tomb. I am not sure if it actually was for their royalty, but the courtyards in front of it were pretty impressive.




The royal tomb probably had the largest inside to it - maybe 50 feet by 50 feet. It is amazing how they cut these exact squares into the rock.


In the center is the place where they offered sacrifices. Some people think maybe they did human sacrifices here.




After a long day we ran to the exit to make it out by closing time at 6 pm. Then we hunted around for a place for dinner and made it back to the hotel exhausted.

We woke up the next morning to enter Petra again at 6 am. This time we really were the only ones in the park. I couldn't believe that there was no one else around. This time we explored some of the closer tombs that we kind of rushed through the previous day. Again, it was all so impressive thinking about the work that must have gone into building this place. We also enjoyed imagining what the town was probably like when it was the center of the kingdom and thousands of people were living there.


After 3 hours in Petra we made our way back to the hotel for the all you can eat breakfast. This is a picture of our breakfast from Aqaba, but it was the same idea for all the breakfasts in Jordan. Just lots of fresh vegetables, pitas with jelly and a dry nut butter thing, hard boiled eggs, hummus, yogurt, omelets, and then I would also usually get a bowl of cereal (that is a nice vacation thing for me since we never have cereal in our house).



Then we checked out and made it to the bus stop for a bus back to Aqaba. Luckily the bus filled up quickly and we only had a 1 hour wait before it took off.

Back in Aqaba we did some walking around waiting for sundown so we could buy some food. We got one of the same dishes we got the first night in Aqaba, a different grilled meat dish, and then stopped by a bakery. We didn't know how much things cost in the bakery, but everything looked so good. Rebecca just told the guy dishing things up to give us one of everything. Really, we only got about half of the things. They were all really good, but also really sugary. We were so stuffed and only got about half way through them.

Dead Sea and Entering Jordan

We woke up early on Sunday morning to drive down to the southern Israel boarder to cross into Jordan. There are three boarder crossing points from Israel to Jordan; one in the north, one in the center, and one in the south. We were already in the northern part of Israel, but we read in the tour guide books that if we were traveling without a tour group, then it is easiest and cheapest to cross at the southern site. When we woke up we checked a few things online before leaving the hotel and we read on one website that the southern crossing was closed to anyone but Israelis. We spent an hour trying to figure it out, but then decided that we just had to go and see what happened.

We drove for about 30 minutes before we crossed into the West Bank area of Israel. There were armed guards there, but they just waved us through. It was a little scary driving through that part, but we just stayed on the freeway and we didn't see anything dangerous. A couple hours later and we were out of the West Bank with another security checkpoint.

Our first stop was going to be Masada. Masada is the ruins of a city that the Jews built up on the very top of the mountain. There are two ways to the top, a cable car ride and a trail. We really wanted to hike to the top and we read that the trail closed at 11 am if it gets too hot outside. We got there at 9:05 am, but they told us that the trail closed 5 minutes earlier at 9 am because it was an extra hot day. We were a little disappointed, but we were also eager to get the boarder crossing taken care of so it wasn't too big of deal.



Our second stop was the Dead Sea. This was amazing. It was really cool just walking out into the water and all the sudden the ground was gone, but I was still standing upright with the water up to my chest. When I was on my back I could also just lay there and even sleep without moving at all and still float right on top of the water. We only spent about 20 minutes there, but felt like we got to experience it enough in that amount of time. Unfortunately that 20 minutes was enough time for them to give us a parking ticket. I missed the sign saying that it was a pay for parking spot.





After the Dead Sea it was a couple more hours until we got to the southern tip of Israel. During this drive we saw a lot of dessert area. At one point we saw Sodom and the area where Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt. We kept driving and got down to Eilat, the southern most city in Isreal. From there we could see Jordan on the east side and Egypt on the west side.





We left the rental car in a parking lot and walked across the boarder. It was really easy and there were no complications at all. Once we got across the boarder we were going to take a 5 mile walk to our hotel except the taxi drivers got us. They told us that by the boarder was a military zone and if we tried to walk it they would make us go back to the Israel side of the boarder. We ended up paying about $20 for the trip. In Jordan everyone was celebrating Ramadan and so there weren't really any places to eat open until about 7 pm (they couldn't eat until 7:45 pm). So, we walked around for a little while exploring Aqaba. While walking around we found a couple really good restaurants that were crowded with people getting take out food so we got some to take back to our hotel. For about $2 per meal we got a huge thing of rice, half a chicken, a pita, and some soup. It is hard to describe the flavors of it, but one of them was a little spicy that had maybe a red curry sauce on it. The chicken was roasted. The other one had a more white yogurt sauce that I think is a traditional Jordanian dish. At that place the chicken had been cooked and soaking in that. Both were really good and we only got about half way through them.

Cana, Nazareth, and Mount Tabor

On our third day in Jerusalem we planned to visit the city of Nazareth. Cana was on the way so we stopped there first. Cana is the city where Christ performed his first miracle by turning the water into wine at the wedding feast. Right off the main road through the city there are two churches that both claim to be on the spot where the wedding feast took place. They also both claim to have pots that held the water that was turned into wine. The first one seemed a little more believable. After walking in the main church we walked a couple flights of stairs down to ruins of the buildings from Christ's time. Those were pretty neat to see. And then, at the bottom they had a huge clay thing surrounded in a glass case. It didn't look anything like we expected. It was about 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide. The wall of it was several inches thick and the inside only went down about 2 of the 4 feet. It was pretty cool, but who knows if it was really the exact one.









Then the second one we went to had a bigger outdoor display for the two pots that they had. They were also very big, but they looked as new as a couple pots you could pick up today at a garden store. It was hard to imagine that those were really 2000 years old, especially after seeing the condition of the first pot. It was still fun to see them and the church that was built to celebrate that miracle.





Just about 15 minutes south of Cana was Nazareth. Nazareth was a little difficult to navigate, but after a few minutes of driving we found a parking spot that was pretty close to the sights we wanted to see. We started off with the first church that was built on the spot that they believed Mary found out she was going to be the mother of Christ. This church believed that the announcement took place in Mary's childhood home. Excavations showed what they believed her home was as well as several other ancient homes that must have been connected to hers. They built their church right on top of them, but then left it open on the outside to see the other homes and built it so Mary's home was right in the middle of the current church. On the inner wall of the church's courtyard there were mosaics of Mary that had been sent in from countries from all over the world. They were pretty cool and it was interesting to see Mary as being Japanese or African or Spanish ethnicity. The inside of the church as all closed so we just had to peak in the windows to see Mary's home, but we enjoyed walking around outside the building. Before we left we walked by the door to the church one more time and there was a lady there rushing a few people in. When we got in they were video recording something and the guy doing the recording angrily tried to rush us in to the center of the church for a ceremony. We stayed in the back to just get a view of the home, but it turned out that they were starting a marriage ceremony and only the wedding party was supposed to be in there. We left after a few minutes. We felt bad to interrupt everything as we were leaving, but luckily we were not down on the floor where the ceremony was taking place.









Then we went to the spot where they believe used to be Joseph's carpentry shop. Again, we had to go a few flights of stairs under ground to get to the ruins. And then to the spot where another church where some others believe Mary was told she would be the mother of Christ. These people believe it took place when she was out getting water by a spring, and so they built a church there. There were lots of people at this one and they were all touching and praying on the spot and washing rubbing the water on their faces.









After that, we just wandered through the city a little bit. One guy stopped me as we wandered around and he said that he had a cave (old city ruins) that we could see for free. I had seen a few people come out so I wasn't too worried that he was trying to trick me. I explored around a bit and it was pretty cool, but Rebecca didn't trust him so she just stayed by the door.

When we finished with Nazareth we wanted to make our way to Mount Tabor or the Mount of Transfiguration. We had printed off directions from Google Maps and we got about half way there. But then we had to go through a small village that had no street signs and we got completely lost. It was an Arab village and the streets seemed a lot scarier than everywhere else we had been so far. After about 20 minutes of driving into dead ends in this village we decided that there was no way we were going to be able to find it this way, so we turned around and tried the longer route just based on our maps.

We did find Mount Tabor and we were both really glad that we did. We originally planned to hike to the top, but after the bike ride the prior day we decided to just drive it. At the top it was very peaceful. There were just some hiking trails and we didn't see anyone else around. It looked like there was a monastery at the far side of the top, but there was plenty of room for us to just walk around and not be anywhere close to it. We did a picnic up there of pitas, fruit, and olives, read some scriptures, talked a little, and just enjoyed the peaceful break from the crowded noisy cities we had been traveling through.





Afterward we drove around the Sea of Galilee to stop at all of our bike ride stops (see last post) and then went back to our hotel. Even though it was Saturday we decided to observe the Sabbath according to the Jewish practices. That meant our Sabbath started at sun down on Friday and went to sun down on Saturday. So we just ate our dinner back at our hotel and got all packed up for our trip to Jordan the next day.