Day 10

Every day of this trip has been better than the day before.  Yesterday I was embarrassed to say that Jerash was my favorite, after I had said that about Caesarea, after I had said that about the Herodian stones in the western wall of Jerusalem.  But nothing so far has compared to today as an all around experience.

Petra is an ancient city in Jordan built and inhabited by the Nabataeans in the 6th Century BC.  These people are unique because within the stone cliffs they carved ornate buildings and dwellings.  All of the stone is carved right from the cliff.  The building stone was not cut out and moved around.  Petra is a large city that winds its way through a range of cliffs and valleys.  Today we did more walking than any other day of our trip.  We walked around Petra all day and didn't even get to see all of it.

After a breakfast of pita bread, jam, and cheese at the Mussa Springs Hotel..

A man with a truck took us down to the entrance of Petra.

It was cloudy and sprinkling.  Great conditions to start a hike (It has the potential to easily be over 100 degrees in Petra).  Bedouin people are camped around everywhere selling things, and there are many opportunities to ride horses, carriages, donkeys, and camels through Petra.  Interesting side note, Petra is where part of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed.

It is about a two mile walk before getting to the road through the cliffs.

This amazing road is an opened crack between two cliffs.  Some parts of the road still have original laid stone to walk on.  A water troth is cut into the side, running all the way down the road to bring water to Petra.

Walking down the ravine takes about 25 minutes before the treasury hits you in the face.  It is right at the end of the road, and has amazing presentation.  The treasury is a massive intricate structure carved into the side of the cliff.  This is where the scene in Indiana Jones took place.

We had to stare at it for a while.  After the treasury are more cliff buildings and dwellings for a very long way.

There are staircases in the cliffs leading to many places.  We took one that led us to "the high place" where human sacrifices were preformed.  It was a great view of Petra and the desert.  We think we could see the alter for sacrifices, but weren't sure.  We also stopped for a snack.

We then hiked to the bottom of the canyon and saw many great carvings along the way.  We walked along the "wadi" for a long time.  The entire way it was lined with pink flowering bushes.  I don't know what they are called.

Now for the best part of the day, and probably the trip.  About five bedouin children started running down the cliff towards us when they spotted us walking along the wadi.  More joined over time.  They were so excited to see us.  They wanted to touch us, know our names, and take pictures of us with our own cameras.  Interacting with them was an incredible experience.  I walked with one girl for a long time and gave her one of my pens.  She wanted my camera too.  She was really cute.  The girl told me that she went to school and pointed at some of the caves.  It was hard to communicate and know exactly what she was talking about though.  We sat down to eat with them and they did a great job entertaining us.  The boys were very funny.  The name of the boy with the donkey is, you guessed it, Muhammed.

After we said goodbye to them, we walked down the wadi farther and got lost (cough dad).  Next was the hardest hike yet, a 40 minute climb up the steps of a cliff to what is called the monastery.  It's like the treasury, but much larger and a bit less detailed.  This might be because it is more exposed to weathering than the treasury.  They had to cut away so much mountain to carve this structure.  It was incredible.

Rachel is a child magnet.  A bedouin girl named Russa (thats at least how it is pronounced I think) held her hand and walked all the way up to the monastery with her.  She was loving every second.  When we started to come back down the trail, she took us to her family's tent.  Her sister, who was 22 ,and an older woman were there.  The sister spoke amazing English.  We asked her how she learned and she said by growing up around tourists.  She told us that she loves to be around people from different places and talk to them.  We were then invited to sit down and have some hot tea that the older woman was making by pouring water into a pot over a fire of sticks.  It was really sweet.  She said, "the tea is sweet because the bedouin people aren't sweet enough."  She told us about how she smokes a lot and doesn't have to eat very much, and that exercise is easy when you are a bedouin.  The girl was born in the caves and has lived there her entire life.  She is saving up to go to school in Ammon.  She was so nice, and very hospitable.  What an amazing experience.

 We hiked down and saw many more sites.  On our way out, I came upon a very small child selling Petra postcards.  I have been saying "no, no" to everyone today, but I couldn't say no to him.  I gave him a dinar and got a picture with him.  I am so grateful to get to interact with people so different than me on the other side of the world from where I live.  It has opened my eyes, brought me joy, broken my heart, and matured me.  Some of these people seem very happy.  Where does happiness come from?

It costs a few dinar to ride a horse out, so a few of us did that.  Fun stuff.

We were exhausted after today.  The pickup took us back to the hotel which supplied us with a fantastic buffet dinner.  Pita, cabbage, humus, falafel balls, chicken, and rice.  Tim talked to us about the plan for the rest of the trip, and we all went around telling him our favorite sites to help with his future tour trip plans.  He has done such a great job.  He is brilliant, diligent, and very good at leading us.  He needs some sort of reward.  What a guy.  We gave him a round of applause.  The trip feels like it is winding down, but it has gone by so fast.  We have done so much, but we have more days left.  Prayers for continued blessings and more experiences and opportunities for growth and teaching!