Petra. Wow. Nothing can prepare you for the experience walking through the mammoth mile long slit through the sandstone & limestone mountains to reach a once was thriving city called Petra. It was established possibly as early the 4th century BC as the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom. It is an important location due to its proximity to the trade routes and establishing itself as a major trading hub. Inhabitants over the centuries began as the Nabataeans, to Serbs, to Greeks to Romans. It's population peaked around the 1st century AD at about 20,000. Romans annexed and renamed the Kingdom to Arabia Petraea. It's importance declined so after. The 363 AD earthquake severely destroyed many structures. By 700 AD, the city was abandoned. Walking into Petra is truly a memorable experience. Who knew you would be walking through a cemetery. Tombs dots the sides of the precipices all the way down to the city central. Facades ranged from the most intact, the treasury (the signature feature of this historical site) to just the hole carved into the mountain. Sandstone is very soft and very vulnerable to the elements. 90% of the city of Petra remains unexcavated! We walked through the ruins of the column and shop lined street that lead us to a 6000 seat amphitheater. There is a picture of it with this episode. See if you can find it. Another surprise is the constant dodging around camels, horses, donkeys, mules, goats, cats, and dogs. It was like herds of all sorts of animals everywhere. The Bedouins currently live here using these animals to take every tourist possible back up the several mile climb — for a fee, of course. So there are lots of camel pictures. They spit, you know. Tea at one stop mid way and lunch at the bottom of the hill were special treats. What a day! What an experience! Oh our aching feet! About 8 miles and 20k + steps. Found a beer to quench our thirst. Not an easy thing to do here.... tomorrow we say goodbye Jordan and hello Israel. Stay tuned!
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