Petra and Kibbutz Ketura

Dressing like bedouins to start the day
(actually, just a favorite game of
Sylvia's to wear pants on her head!)

Jordanian breakfast

I’d wear out the W on my keyboard typing “wow” enough times to do justice to Petra. We woke up early this morning and enjoyed a great breakfast at the hotel – lots of variety, “best pancakes ever”, a pot of hot chocolate for the kids (“SO good”), and very gracious service. By 8 am we were heading into the ancient city of Petra. Built by the Nabateans around the 1^st century BCE, Jordan was unknown by Western people for about 400 years (just the local Bedouins knew about it). In the early 1800’s, a Swiss adventurer posed as a local and rediscovered the lost city. It’s a city built into the dramatic rocks and cliffs that are found all around the area. You enter through the visitors center, which is really just a ticket counter and a bunch of shops, and start walking down a path past some “teaser” structures. For example, there are these huge piles of  square stones called Djin Blocks which the Nabateans believed housed spirits. You also walk past a couple of tombs – like the ancient Egyptians, the Nabateans apparently put a lot of focus on death rituals and arrangements, and out of 800 sites in Petra, 500 of them are tombs. Next, you walk down the Siq – a 1 or 2 km long passageway that leads to the ancient city. Along the sides of the Siq, carved into the rock cliffs are water channels. One of the great accomplishments of this civilization was that they conquered water – using dams and channels to provide a regular supply of water for the many thousands of people who lived in the city, despite the fact that the region experiences only a few days of rain a year, usually accompanied by flash floods. Finally, after walking though this impressive cliff-sided entryway, you reach the first (and probably grandest) of Petra’s major sites, the Treasury. This ornate royal tomb is huge – maybe like a 10 story building, and richly decorated in a style that blends Greek and other architectural influences (columns, various gods such as Isis), but unlike anything you’ve ever seen before because it is carved (like most of the buildings of Petra) out of a red rock cliff. There’s no way to describe how amazing this site is when you first glimpse it down the narrow Siq.

First view of the treasury

From this point on, you see amazing things carved out of the stones all around you. There are hundreds of tombs – the most impressive of which were for royalty, an amphitheater (built by the Nabateans but improved by the Romans) which held 8500 people (a third of the population of Petra), a column lined cardo, palaces, temples, and places of sacrifice. We walked in as far as we thought we could and safely get back out in time for our cab ride back to the border (the major thing we missed was the monastery. The only thing I didn’t love about Petra was the pushy donkey/horse/camel/cart drivers who pester you every 2 minutes to take a ride. First of all, how did they think we were going to ride a donkey with a stroller?! Second, when you ride, you miss all of the fun – climbing into the caves, discovering the “god blocks” carved into the walls, and so on. So, we walked and said “no thank you” a lot, and stopped for water breaks and once fresh squeezed orange juice form one of the vendors. Although it was a bumpy ride for Sylvia, she was mostly very content to sit in the stroller and look at the people, the animals, and the sites. Jonah loved the climbing – he thought it was really cool that you could go almost wherever you wanted, into caves, up rock cliffs, etc. Ella liked the mystery of the place – how it was very ancient, but rediscovered only recently; she was also happy to be able to give a piece of candy to a little boy selling postcards, which made him smile. Abe really appreciated seeing ancient architecture that was still intact – and hadn’t been destroyed over the years by earthquakes, war, conquering forces, etc.

 

An expert helping Ella keep the sun
off her face

Matching Indiana Jones hats

Sand at in a bottle - very popular here

We left the ancient city just as it was starting to get really hot, and found a little local restaurant for lunch  (we really wanted falafel, but “settled” for more delicious salads, grilled meat, rice, etc). We met Yasir back at the hotel and enjoyed another couple of hours of chatting with him as we drove back to the border -- we had some interesting conversations about politics, his views on the peace with Israel (he’s happy about it – his sister and her husband traveled to Israel and had a great time), the price of gasoline (it’s gone up a lot since Sadaam Hussein was toppled as Jordan used to get cheap gas from Iraq, and now it gets expensive gas from Saudi Arabia), and so on.

Crossing back to Israel

Waiting at the border security

Entertaining the tourists with the
bumblebee song

Dinner at Kibbutz Ketura

Watching the moon rise again -- this
time from Israel

The border crossing was quick on the Jordanian side, and a little slower on the Israel side (there were a couple of groups in front of us) and by 5 pm we were picking up our luggage from the hostel and back on the road. We arrived at Kibbutz Ketura just in time for a quick swim in the pool and yummy grilled cheese sandwiches in the café. The woman who made the sandwiches, sat and talked with us a bit. She was one of the founding members of the Kibbutz in the 70’s. You could tell from talking to her that the shine has gone off the apple a bit for her (and maybe many kibbutz residents), as she talked somewhat wistfully about the heady, idealistic days of building something from nothing in an exciting time in the country. We all went outside and sat a bit longer as we watched the moon rise over the mountain (a big orange moon tonight) and Sylvia played on the playground. Finally, we decided to skip the night swim that was going on back at the pool and take it easy back in our very comfortable guest rooms instead.