Thanks for visiting. This blog is a meeting place for anyone who has been or is planning to go to Petra in Jordan. Please feel free to send us your stories or photographs and we will reciprocate with the latest news and advice to help plan your next journey.
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.
We think it is time to enjoy a little light music with your favourite blog. Diana Karazon, a star of Jordan’s modern music scene, rose in the nation’s consciousness when she represented Pan-Arabia in an international World Idol competition and sang in Arabic when everybody else sang in English.
We hear she is getting married on the 7th July, coinciding with the announcement of the New 7 Wonders. You have voted haven’t you?
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.
When New 7 Wonders founder Bernard Weber visited Petra on a tour of the front runners, he brought a hot air balloon with him. Here’s an excerpt from his blog:
Everyone met up in Petra today, the big day. I went early to do some filming and also to supervise something quite extraordinary – the tethered flight of the New7Wonders hot-air balloon in front of the Treasury, in a quite small square at the end of the Siq, the famous, narrow canyon that leads down into the city.
Surrounded by the actors who would soon bring Petra to life, and by camels and horses, the first hot-air balloon ever to rise in Petra amazed everyone present as it hovered gracefully in front of the huge façade. Even the horses and camels, which had initially been very startled at both the noise of the flame rushing to heat the air and the fan blowing the air into the balloon envelope, seemed to gaze at the strange blue object.
Sometimes we lean towards the flippant - remember the camel drinking from a bottle - but we also have a more serious side. No really. That’s why we thought we would mention a new book - and given that it costs £35 and is very academic, we should probably call it a tome - all about how Petra was built, a scholarly romp through Nabataean building techniques.
If you don’t have shelf space right at the moment, here is a review of the book from Bryn Mawr classical review to whet the appetite.
The claw chisel was used to produce the famous “Nabataean diagonal dressing” on blocks, and drills were used to prepare and finish some details. Finishing of blocks and facades could be carried out by pecking, or with stone pounders or polishers. The masons clearly knew how to use the straightedge, setsquare, template, and compass. The finer buildings were finished off with several layers of lime plaster for the sake of weatherproofing and decoration. Although the details are uncertain, it seems that some sort of cubit was the module used. Where necessary, blocks were lifted with bipod cranes fitted with compound pulleys.
And not a JCB in sight.
Details: Shaher M. Rababeh, How Petra was Built. An analysis of the construction techniques of the Nabataean freestanding buildings and rock-cut monuments in Petra, Jordan. BAR International Series 1460. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2005. Pp. xii, 237; ills. 193. ISBN 1-84171-898-X. £36.00.
Kaddee, also known as Kathryn or Kate, is a visiting professor on a two year stint at Cairo’s American University. Accompanied by her husband Jack, she recently took a trip into Jordan and enjoyed a night time visit to Petra, which she documented in her blog:
Our last evening in Petra happened to be a Monday. The site is partially open on Monday and Thursday nights for “Petra at Night” events. For this event, the site from the entry gate, thru the Siq to the courtyard in front of the Treasury is lined with candle lumieres. There are about 1800 candles lining the 2km walk! Even after spending 2 days in Petra, walking the Siq twice in each direction, the experience after dark was incredible. Romantic - especially since we had a full moon. Surreal.
The mind plays tricks in situations like Petra after Dark. Shadows move in the breeze and become Nabataean worshipers or craftsmen on their way to the ancient city. The city could be alive. As we approached the end of the Siq, hauntingly beautiful Bedouin flute music floated up the rocky passageway. It was TRULY like a dream. It is an experience that I can and will never forget. (Unfortunately, my point-and-shoot could not take nighttime pictures of candles and moonlight - Jack has some incredible shots from this experience).
He certainly has. That’s one of his on the left and it is worth checking out the original to get the full effect.
There are a number of good videos of Petra out there but this is one of our favourites. We don’t know much about Nikki and Michi beyond the photo on their blog but they sure know how to put together an atmospheric video.
Anyone doing their homework before visiting Petra could do worse than check out the Petra microsite at the American Museum of Natural History. Besides being one of the visually richest internet resources on the ancient city, it delivers the history of Petra in a clear and well-written manner. It is not content with repeating familiar findings; it also considers the proof behind them. For example, how do we know Petra was pummeled by a major earthquake in AD363?
In 1976, archaeologists in Petra excavated a small house destroyed by an earthquake in antiquity. Lying in one corner were what seemed to be the remains of a spare-change jar: 85 small bronze coins scattered amid pottery fragments. All the coins bore the image of the Roman emperor Constantius II, and most were minted after a currency reform of AD 354. The quake, therefore, could not have happened before then.
Additional evidence came to light that same year when a scholar doing archival research chanced on a letter written in antiquity. Evidently the work of Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem from AD 350 to 386, the letter tallies the effects of a great regional earthquake. According to the letter, “nearly half” of Reqem (the Nabataean name for Petra) was destroyed by a quake “at the third hour, and partly at the ninth hour of the night,” on May 19, AD 363. Cyril tells us, in other words, the date and time not just of the main quake, but of its powerful aftershock.
Mosher, who we think might also be called Iain, will be trekking across Europe this summer for charity. Well done. Feel free to go and sponsor him.
In the meantime, he has been limbering up by strolling around some of the world’s wonders, including Petra. We would recommend staying over at Petra and enjoying the sights over a few days. However if you are in a hurry, feel free to follow in Mosher’s footsteps.
Fending off several branches of the camel world’s answer to AVIS (Xavier convinced them he was camelphobic) we walked further to an area with a large amphitheater, and the Palace Tomb set back and up a cliff to our right. As we scaled the heights to see this building, several of the donkeys in the area decided to have a very loud conversation. Frankly, it was a really scary sound - braying and ee-or-ing echoing back and forth across a stone-clad valley. Freaked me out, anyway.
“Two people, one wedding, no return tickets…” Dan and Gabrielle are honeymooning on a round the world trip, sending out despatches along the way on their TravelPod blog.
A recent post found the happy couple in Petra and it would be fair to say they were impressed:
Wow… wow. Thats all. I don’t have anything else to say…
Fortunately, a few more words were forthcoming.
Near the end of the Siq, there is a huge temptation to run for your first glimpse of what you know is coming. You round the last corner and there it is… the ‘Treasury’ of Petra, seen fragmented through the rolling walls of the Siq.
Breath Taking
Breath Taking
We came out into the clearing and picked up our jaws. The sheer scale of it is incredible. The ornate detail in the building… the stunning red, gold colour of the stone… the absolute majesty that surrounds it… it was incredible
Let’s hope the rest of their honeymoon is as memorable.
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.
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 
We think it is time to enjoy a little light music with your favourite blog. Diana Karazon, a star of Jordan’s modern music scene, rose in the nation’s consciousness when she represented Pan-Arabia in an international World Idol competition and sang in Arabic when everybody else sang in English.
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 
Or if we are being really precise: 21 days, 15 hours. That’s how long to go until voting ends for the 
Kaddee, also known as Kathryn or Kate, is a visiting professor on a two year stint at Cairo’s American University. Accompanied by her husband Jack, she recently took a trip into Jordan and enjoyed a night time visit to Petra, which she 
Anyone doing their homework before visiting Petra could do worse than check out the Petra microsite at the 
Mosher, who we think might also be called Iain, will be trekking across Europe this summer for charity. Well done. Feel free to go and 
“Two people, one wedding, no return tickets…” Dan and Gabrielle are honeymooning on a round the world trip, sending out despatches along the way on their 
