Dateline: Petra. When you see pictures of Petra, you always see the "Treasury" which was featured briefly in Indiana Jones III. Who knew they darn thing was a city in stone with dozens of building fronts carved into the cliffs, covering 13 square miles. It is likely they were tombs and the whole thing was a Nabataean/Roman necropolis or city of the dead - think Forest Lawn starting about 100 b.c. The stories feature the Treasury because it is the most complete and elaborate, but many of the others are impressive too.
The cliffs of Petra remind us both of Zion National Park in Utah. The same red sandstone, the same weird erosion, the same narrow canyons that here are called "siqs" (pronounced "seeks"). That reminds me of Frank Herbert's Dune where the Fremen live in sietchs. Herbert did a lot of semi-Arabic in that book, which made sense as thousands of years had passed and terminology mutates or drifts over time.
Going to Petra involves a whole bunch of walking, several miles on less than smooth trails. A bunch of it in soft sand about 3 inches deep, a bunch more on Roman roads that were probably smooth stone when new but now, 2,000 years later, and no maintenance in the last 1500, it is darned uneven and hard to walk on. Our bunch of old crocks were pooped last night at supper.
This is one of those things you want to for sure see once, but probably wouldn't do a second time. It is an archaeological wonder, but isn't decorated inside like the Egyptian tombs. We are glad we came.
