We could not have said it better ourselves. Scott MacLeod, Cairo bureau chief for Time, is also one of the authors of the magazine’s Middle East blog. In his most recent post he writes about Petra’s success in the New7Wonders competition. He speaks with experience:
When I first visited Petra in 1983, it wasn’t much of a tourist site. You had to take a rickety 7 a.m. Jett bus from Amman, ride five hours or so south on a two-lane road and stay at the dodgy Rest House at the entrance. A 160-page book on Jordan given to me at the time by the Ministry of Information devoted all of four paragraphs to Petra’s wonders. Bedouin were still living in Petra’s tombs.
Fortunately for the millions of tourists who have subsequently visited Petra, the journey and the experience have improved considerably.
The votes have been counted - 90 million of them - and Petra has just been announced as one of the New 7 Wonders at the gala presentation in Lisbon.
There is mass celebration in Jordan, no more so than in Petra itself. The Waleg blogger has been posting live from the ruins at Petra and sums up the general exuberance right now:
The atmosphere here in Petra is unbelievable! People are shouting & jumping & dancing! Live broadcast from all over Jordan show the excitement & happiness; people are out on the streets celebrating their own Petra, the magical city.
We can’t believe it! This is fantastic! I’m jumping with joy!
Well done Petra. We are really happy for everyone there.
Gareth Scurlock made the trip to Jordan recently for the Times. You can now read his various adventures in eco-tourism camps, Petra and Wadi Rum on the Times Online website.
His description of the plight of the Dead Sea is interesting; so too his trip to the Dana Nature Reserve. And of course he found Petra particularly moving.
It’s a 90-minute early morning drive to Petra, where the entrance is as affecting as the monuments, tombs and temples themselves. The walk down through the Siq, a narrow gorge that at places is only a couple of metres wide, is nearly a mile long. The vertical cliffs used to be joined, now wrought apart by earthquakes and other natural forces. The bright red hues of weathered sandstone hint at the majesty ahead.
For most people, the image that typifies the Red Rose City is that of the Treasury, carved out of the same vertical cliffs as those that line the Siq. Emerging from the gorge, the massive, ornate wall is revealed gradually and is awe-inspiring even if you’ve seen the picture hundreds of times.
Want an edible souvenir from Petra? Everybody takes home dates (and with good reason). But how about Jordan almonds? We found these in an excellent photo set from Flickr user Kapitän Tziaak.
Jordan almonds, also known as sugared almonds, are a type of confectionery consisting of almonds covered solely with a hard sugar coating in various pastel colors. A classic form of dragée, they are often used as wedding favors due to the “bitter” almonds and the “sweet” sugar representing bittersweet married life. No longer exclusive to weddings, they are now used as gifts for other occasions and have become a popular movie candy snack. Jordan almonds commonly come in pastel, spring themed colors such as lilac, pale yellow, light green, and white.
Bernard Weber, the founder of the New7Wonders competition, has written his final New7Wonders World Tour blog post before the competition ends on Friday. He finishes with some general thoughts on the event:
Not only is N7W the first global voting campaign, but also the first time that children can participate in an election. They are our best champions, as well as important guarantors that the voting is objective - because most of them have not developed nationalistic feelings and they vote for what they truly like and admire.
It’s been a fascinating journey and looking back through earlier posts, it seems clear the visit to Petra was one of the highlights.
Queen Rania is truly one of the most beautiful, graceful and elegant personalities that I have had the occasion to meet on the World Tour so far. She represents in person the dignity of the Jordanian people and their ancient culture in a superb way. What a great blend of reality, dream and the aura of a site like Petra - together with the people representing this unique place! The event itself was a spectacular mega-production, a recreation of Nabatean life in the marketplace in front of the Treasury 2,000 years ago, followed by a terrific Roman legion performance and gladiator fight in the ancient amphitheater.
Over-nighting in desert lodges run by Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature, the group followed old caravan routes, encountering Jordanian wildlife and some stunning scenery along the way.
Our accommodation was at another RSCN reserve, Ajloun, and we slept in safari-style tented lodges surrounded by pistachio, carob and ilex trees. That night all I could hear was the occasional shriek of an owl then, at dawn, the call to prayer from a village mosque. As the morning mist lifted, we walked through terraced olive groves and pasture thick with wildflowers to the Byzantine church of Mar Elyas, supposed birthplace of the prophet Elijah, on a lonely limestone hilltop.
They had originally planned to avoid Petra but couldn’t resist.
…the lure of the rose-red city was too great. Joining a night-time excursion, we walked along the famous Siq, our way lit by hundreds of candles. Sitting on kilims in the moonlight, we listened in awe as a Bedouin played a mournful tune on his reed pipe, the strains echoing round the wall and wafting up to the stars.
Just as there are many ways to crack a nut (hint: some of us favour dynamite), so there are many different ways to get to Petra. Jeremy Seal, writing in the Sunday Times found a very round about route to the rose red city, involving a desert trek, Bedouin trails and camping out under the stars in newly-created eco-lodges.
This is unrivalled walking, and not only for the dizzying views of the mountains and the Wadi Araba far below. Immersion in the local history, culture and geology is providing us with an illuminating context for the city we’re approaching. You can’t miss the fact that we’re closing upon Petra: it is sneak-previewed in the ancient rock-cut water channel that leads us one morning to the ruins of the village it once served, and in the colours and shapes of the surreal eroded sandstone that overhangs our path like molten wax or fresh tears.
Panoramio, the photo sharing site is in the process of being acquired by Google, which can only mean even closer integration with Google Earth. If you have never tried Google Earth and you are at all interested in travel and geography you should give it a shot. The level of detail you can see in many of the satellite images is superb.
Better yet, thanks to this integration with Panoramio, when you zoom in on an area such as Petra in Jordan, you can now find other travellers’ photographs pinpointing the major places on the site. Great for getting your bearings before you go.
A very talented writer and photographer, Heida Biddle is posting daily updates of her trip to Jordan right now on her blog. Recent pictures include great shots of these two girls at Petra. They may not have the practised poses of Petra Nemcova, but they still made great models. Heida’s atmospheric early morning stroll round Petra is also well worth visiting.
I woke up very early this morning in hopes I could visit Petra entirely alone, away from the many other tourists visiting each day. At 5:30 am, the air was already hot, heavy and still as I walked past steep hillsides dotted with limestone houses, horses, goats and sheep. A little boy tended his herd of goats, singing a local melody at the very top of his lungs while a couple of young men rode by on Arabian horses, their horses prancing and fidgeting. It felt nearly biblical.
However talented the photographer, it is not easy trying to capture the astonishing variety of colours and forms to be found on the rocks and earth around Petra. Jochen Westermann, from Munich, has done an amazing job capturing the shades and shapes. Take a look at this photo set on Flickr and wonder at Mother Nature at her most creative.
Dan and Carly, Canadians who are staying in Singapore for a couple of years, just visited Petra and were amused to meet a donkey called Michael Jackson. The beast seemed pretty sure-footed by the record doesn’t show if it could moon-walk.
The views from the top of the mountain are stunning. I have no idea how it’s possible, but at the top on the High Place we met a Bedouin boy (about 6 years old) who rode his donkey all the way to the top. Now, you’d have to actually see this to believe it, because I still have no idea how in the name of all things Holy a donkey made it up there, but I watched him ride down, and I was thankful that we declined his offer for a ride down on the donkey (who, incidentally, was named “Michael Jackson”). At one point the boy asked Carly if we were “together” or “married”… she told him we were, and he said “Oh. You have nice husband”.
Is there a better blog about Jordan than Black Iris? Written by Naseem Tarawnah, it’s a colourful, multimedia journal covering a host of subjects. This week he takes us on a drive through Wadi Rum, complete with front seat videos:
We drove past the “rum ship”, which basically looks like a ship in the middle of the desert. There we met a few young Bedouin boys and girls, one of whom tried to throw in as many English words as she could because I suppose anyone who does come from Amman is technically a tourist in these parts.
That idea of rolling down sand dunes looks like fun. Check out the video.
We could not have said it better ourselves. Scott MacLeod, Cairo bureau chief for Time, is also one of the authors of the magazine’s Middle East blog. In his most recent post he writes about Petra’s success in the New7Wonders competition. He speaks with experience:
Gareth Scurlock made the trip to Jordan recently for the 
Want an edible souvenir from Petra? Everybody takes home dates (and with good reason). But how about Jordan almonds? We found 
Bernard Weber, the founder of the 
A few days ago we mentioned 
To return to the idea of a taking 
At first sight it looks like just another camel shot - until you look more closely and realise the camel is 
Just as there are many ways to crack a nut (hint: some of us favour dynamite), so there are many different ways to get to Petra. Jeremy Seal, 
Panoramio
A very talented writer and photographer, Heida Biddle is posting daily updates of her trip to Jordan right now 
However talented the photographer, it is not easy trying to capture the astonishing variety of colours and forms to be found on the rocks and earth around Petra. Jochen Westermann, from Munich, has done an amazing job capturing the shades and shapes. Take a look at 
Dan and Carly, Canadians who are staying in Singapore for a couple of years, just visited Petra and were amused to meet a donkey called Michael Jackson. The beast seemed pretty sure-footed by the record doesn’t show if it could moon-walk.
Is there a better blog about Jordan than 
