Everything else – the Greek islands, Knossos, Phaestos, the Acropolis, Jerusalem, Wadi Rum, the Nile, Karnak, Luxor, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, Cairo – was filler. Glorious, life-altering filler, indisputably – but filler nonetheless. Like the Cyclades around Delos, this journey was centered around one singular, unabating, specific goal: I. would set foot. in Petra!

John William Burgon described it beautifully in a poem for which he earned the Newdigate Prize in 1845. Almost as tragic as the ruined glory of Petra, though, is the story of this sonnet – Burgon's description came entirely from second-hand accounts: He had never seen the rose-red city with his own eyes.

Petra It seems no work of Man's creative hand, by labor wrought as wavering fancy planned; But from the rock as by magic grown, eternal, silent, beautiful, alone! Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine, where erst Athena held her rites divine; Not saintly-grey, like many a minster fane, that crowns the hill and consecrates the plain; But rose-red as if the blush of dawn, that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn; The hues of youth upon a brow of woe, which Man deemed old two thousand years ago, match me such marvel save in Eastern clime, a rose-red city half as old as time. – John William Burgon

That's my favorite picture of EN Petra AR البتراء , by the way, and one of my top three from the whole vacation. From the moment I saw that wall, I knew that it encapsulated my reverence for Petra: the natural striations; the ornate carving; the juxtaposed fragility; the fact that it was left abandoned and unfinished.

Did the carvers leave this one untamable wall when Petra was still vibrant, alive, and busy with labor? or at the end when time had simply run out? Was it abrupt when they put away their tools? or did one or two old workers keep at it, less and less often, until they became too old, too tired, too confused to continue? Did they blame themselves? their gods? the weather? the rock? the jinn? Was it a bitter reminder to them of failure? Or did they, like me, think it was one of the most beautiful things on earth?

So how important was Petra to me? Well, I wrote the rough draft of the trip report in as it happened; but when it came time to prepare the final result, I started with this page, then I went back to page 1. Even the color-scheme of this trip report nods to Petra. I cannot immediately think of the goal in my life that will supersede the drive to visit the rose-red city.

So this is how that day went ...

The Taybet Zaman was a hotel that we definitely could have gotten used to. But even if we could have afforded the 92 JD ($130) a night, we couldn't have afforded the time. So we checked out early and hit the road for Petra. We did, however, stop in at the breakfast buffet, where we enjoyed eavesdropping on a nearby table: A French mother was trying to teach her very young child English by making him order the beverages and thank the waiter.

And jeez, before I move on, I just have to dwell on the social complexity of that situation:

1. In an Arabic-speaking country, a French-speaking family felt the need to use English as (it's disturbing even to type it) the "linga franca."
2. This mother thought English was so important that she was teaching it to her toddler.
3. The French have an undeserved reputation for linguistic belligerence, but I have seen no evidence of this either in France or outside it. On this trip especially we encountered group after group of French tourists (there was a major travel promotion there in the spring of this year), and all would eagerly speak with me and Billy in English, even after I spoke to them in French and made it clear that I would be happy to continue doing so. (If nothing else, traveling teaches that everything everyone says is wrong.)

So it made me a little sad to hear the kid and the waiter struggling along in English. I don't feel comfortable having an unfair advantage, but Billy and I really won the language lottery when we were born.

Not realizing that we had passed the historic site as we looked for the Taybet Zaman the prior evening, our day's journey began in the wrong direction. Fortunately, this was a detour of only about 10 km – and we found the signage clear and plentiful once we were facing toward it. I dropped Billy at the visitors center and then went to park the car, which required paying 3.000 JD ($4.24) (no surprise there) and signing, for no discernable reason, a piece of paper with nothing written on it except all of the other drivers' signatures, all oriented randomly on the page.

The attendant was surprised that I asked whether I should sign in Arabic or English (none of the other signatures were in Latin script), and was astonished when I signed it correctly in Arabic. People didn't seem particularly amazed that I could speak a bit of Arabic, even though very few tourists can, and even though the language is quite challenging – but, strangely, they were often flabbergasted to find that I could read and write it, which really isn't all that difficult.

World Heritage Site

Petra Date of Inscription: 1985 Brief Description: Inhabited since prehistoric times, this Nabataean caravan-city, situated between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea, was an important crossroads between Arabia, Egypt and Syria-Phoenicia. Petra is half-built, half-carved into the rock, and is surrounded by mountains riddled with passages and gorges. It is one of the world's most famous archaeological sites, where ancient Eastern traditions blend with Hellenistic architecture. Criteria:   ✔ i.    to represent a masterpiece of human creative genius;     ii.    to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design;   ✔ iii.    to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared;   ✔ iv.    to be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history;     v.    to be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change;     vi.    to be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (The Committee considers that this criterion should preferably be used in conjunction with other criteria);     vii.    to contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance;     viii.    to be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features;     ix.    to be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals;     x    to contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.

Anyway, I reconnoitered with Billy and we bought our tickets and made our way in.

Entrance Ticket to Petra (They love the rubber stamp in the Middle East.)

For a place so burdened with expectations, Petra delivered admirably.  The pictures, however, are likely the worst of the trip:  Because of Billy's fatigue, we rode through the Siq in a horse-drawn cart; through the valley on camels; and up to the Monastery on the backs of donkeys.  My pictures, therefore, reflect a shaky platform, an uncertainty as to balance, and often an unpredictable speed.  Even the good pictures, however, cannot begin to reflect the experience.  Because of the narrow valley, it is impossible in some places to stand far enough back to frame an entire grand façade.  In other places, a choice must be made:  The picture can reflect (1) the scope or (2) the detail, but rarely both. The following pictures illustrate what I'm talking about:

Here's a nice entrance to one of the tombs, with a little detail that's worth noticing. And here's the façade above that doorway! This is why I say there is a challenge with "scope." The Nabateans had their own issues with scope: This is the single ground-level room in that structure (another tomb entrance can be seen about 15 m up).

But I've jumped ahead just to make a point about the photographic challenges of Petra. Let's get back to the proper sequence of events: Billy and I are bouncing downhill on a rutted dirt road (and occasional Roman-era cobblestones), squeezed into the passenger area of a horse cart with the driver, racing past some monuments and tombs that would be absolutely astonishing if the Nabatean city of Petra didn't await just a few hundred meters through the narrow Siq.

I was a bit concerned about the fact that we would be using animals in Petra, as a lot of tourist sites (especially in this part of the world) have a reputation for mistreatment of animals. So I was delighted to see this sign just past the ticket booth. Feeling better about the experience, we hopped in our cart through the Siq: I couldn't get many good pictures from the approach to the Siq. And really, the stuff there is pretty lame in comparison to Petra proper, anyway. I have a few pictures in my full collection, but they're just not worth the space in the final report. But one very interesting spot in this area is a pair of tombs stacked one on top of the other – the Obelisk and Triclinium tombs.

EN The Siq AR السيق  means "the shaft" in Arabic. It is the slot canyon that protected the Nabateans from drought and invasion, and then protected Petra from the outside world until the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (at right in front of the Treasury) made his famous and perilous trip of 1812 into the secret city. He did so by traveling in the guise of Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah, a devout Muslim and a learned scholar of Qur'anic law. There is uncertainty as to whether Burckhardt's conversion to Islam was genuine, or whether it was an elaborate hoax to facilitate his explorations. But whatever his true beliefs, he was convincing enough to be the first European allowed into Petra in over a millennium. After having weighted Petra so heavily in my worldview, it astonishes me that anyone might think of its discovery as anything less than the crowning achievement of a life well lived. But for Burckhardt it was merely a diversion as he bolstered his resources and reputation for the true goal of his life: discovering the source of the Niger River. Sadly, Burckhardt would succumb to dysentery while trying to organize a trip to West Africa, and never got to explore the river around which his life's work was centered. He went to his grave only as the man who rediscovered Petra.

It bears note that this didn't open the floodgates to Petra. The site remained largely closed to outsiders until after World War I.

As the horse cart rumbled along scattering other tourists in its wake, finally we came to the Siq itself. Inside the Siq, the walls close tighter and tighter. Until, at last, that iconic view of the Treasury comes into view:

So we hopped out of the cart, paid the driver, arranged for the pick up later, and set about seeing Petra – beginning with EN the Treasury AR الخزنة AR al-khazna , where the Siq opens into EN Wadi Musa AR وادي موسى  – the "Valley of Moses" (as Arabic tradition holds Petra to be the place where Moses brought forth water from a rock by striking it with his staff).

Fans of the unfortunately named movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade will recognize the Treasury as the final site in which the holy grail was placed. In truth, it was probably a temple (or maybe a tomb) – but it is called "The Treasury" because the Bedouin believed that the urn above the doorway held treasure, and spent decades trying fruitlessly to break it open and release a shower of gold. Bullet marks and other scars from these efforts remain visible to this day. Fortunately, such desecration has come to a stop: Petra is a protected site, and modern science lets us know that these legends never held a grain of truth: The urn, like the rest of the façade, is solid rock; the only treasure is the architecture that a few greedy souls tried to destroy.

It was spectacular finally just to stand in front of the Treasury. Here's what it looked like: to David Roberts in 1839: And here's what it looked like to me: But I was surprised to see that there were portions of this famous site below ground level as well. And here are the rest of the pictures:

At first we tried to walk a bit to see some of the edifices up close. This was nice for as long as it lasted, as we got our first taste of the depth of Petra along the Street of Façades.

You'd think that with the narrow canyons and sheer walls and sheltered tombs that there would be some respite from the blazing sun in Petra – but there is not. It beats straight down, mercilessly and unceasingly. And the tombs have a heavy, stuffy air that offsets the shade they provide. So we stopped in one of the snack bars (which are placed every 100 m in Petra) for Cokes and Snickers bars (the latter being smaller and less sweet than what we have in the U.S.), and created trilateral friction among ourselves and the natives: Camel rides through the Wadi Musa are easy to come by, and we intended to ride part of the way; but we were uncertain how long we wanted to walk before hiring camels. A group of men tried to interest us in their camels, but we demurred because of this uncertainty. Unfortunately, we demurred by saying, "maybe later; we haven't decided" instead of "absolutely not." In the snack bar, a young man took our requests and handled our money and change. We assumed that he worked there, but it turned out that he was just building a relationship (as is the custom) in the hope of further capitalistic interaction. By this point, we had been sitting for a few minutes and Billy had let me know that he was exhausted in the sun and didn't want to walk any further down the valley, so the young man, overhearing us, asked us to speak to his friend, Ahmed Abdullah, about camels. We struck a deal with Ahmed Abdullah – and when the first group of camel owners saw that we had done so, they became quite fussy with us, saying that we had an obligation to attempt a deal with them before going to someone else. We protested confusion and ignorance, and apologized for the misunderstanding; this placated their anger toward us, but they remained quite vocally annoyed at Ahmed Abdullah for stealing our business, shouting to him in Arabic that I didn't understand, and then shouting to us that he is unethical.

Now as I write, I know that most of the people reading this will think, "That's crazy. You can make your camel arrangements with anyone. It's the customer's choice. Period." What I can tell you now, with better understanding and a little hindsight, is that (in the culture of rural Jordan) the angry fellow was completely in the right: We had established a obligation to do business with him if we did business in his vicinity. And Ahmed Abdullah's behavior was, indeed, unethical. It took me a few more days and a few more interactions (mostly successful ones) before I really understood the system and my obligations within it. But it was clear to me that we were on the wrong side from the start: Ahmed Abdullah's behavior and body language reflected guilt and the wish for a quick getaway.

So we did make a quick getaway, down the Wadi Musa, past the Amphitheatre and a few temples, down the Colonnaded Street, and to the EN Qasr al-Bint AR قصر البنت   – this name ("the daughter's castle") deriving from a legend that a Nabatean princess lived there and promised that she would marry the first man who brought running water to the castle. Various outcomes are reported: (1) no one ever succeeded; (2) one man finally succeeded, with the help of "men, camels, and God"; and (3) two men succeeded simultaneously, so she didn't marry either one. In truth, the building wasn't a residence at all, but a temple, which lends weight to an impression I have formed: The archaeologists are busy here, but I think there is also a lot of work for sociologists. It's fascinating how the protectors of this site, descendents of the builders, lost their knowledge of its original purpose, and developed false legends for just about every location in it.

Notice, especially, this camel-shaped natural formation (which is also visible in a couple of the pictures above). Even as we stood in the middle of one of the most splendid archaeological discoveries on the planet, many people in Petra pointed to this mountaintop as worthy of our attention – thus highlighting just how important the camel is to them.

On the Colonnaded Street in "downtown ancient Petra" we disembarked from our camels and were sold on a donkey ride up to EN the Monastery AR الدير AR ad-deir  – again, not a monastery, but likely a temple or tomb related to Obodas (based on a nearby inscription, discovered about sixteen years ago, making reference to "the symposium of Obodas the God"). The truth is, I resisted this leg of the journey: I was a little worried about money and time, and much of what I had read about Petra said you needed a second day if you planned to see the Monastery. But Ahmed Abdullah had a friend in the donkey business and they gave us what they assured us was a very good rate of 60.000 JD ($84.75) for the two of us to ride up the hill to the Monastery. Now, I'm no fool: I know that we could have paid five times as much and received the same assurance. But I just didn't come to Petra with the requisite foundation of knowledge to know the appropriate fee for two people to ride on the backs of donkeys from the Colonnaded Street up to the Monastery. I know lots of stuff – but not that. What I did know was that I didn't see anybody else with a donkey, I could afford it, and the Monastery sounded really cool.

So up we went. And it was really cool. And I hope that if we overpaid, at least our overpayment might help to equalize the economic imbalance that causes one of the most amazing places on earth to be also one of the poorest.

Anyway, our guide was fun. He told us about the economic and educational privation of his Bedouin people; apparently they long for a decent school system, as there is a substantial difference in quality between the schools in Amman (the capital) and this area far to the south. He told us that he never studied English (which he spoke pretty well), but, rather, picked it up from the tourists; he said that actually he didn't speak "English," but rather "tourist English." And he shared with us his aspiration of someday having four wives (as is allowed in Jordan). (We asked him if this system didn't leave a lot of men with no wife, and he said yes and fell silent, as if this question had cost him a lot of sleepless nights.) To his credit, he jogged alongside us all the way up the long mountain path, as we were sitting on his only two donkeys. I offered to let him ride for a while, as I was not exhausted but merely needed to make sure that Billy was provided for. But he wouldn't hear of it, insisting that he was accustomed to this work as he huffed and puffed alongside us.

The path that the donkeys ported us on was a bit treacherous: But the Monastery was magnificent, and coming up to it was the wise choice. I took a lot of pictures (a lot more than you see here) trying to get the perfect shot. The inside of the Monastery:

We rested at the top (more Snickers and Cokes), and then made our way down as we had come, eating in the restaurant in downtown ancient Petra, and then reconnoitering with Ahmed Abdullah for the camel ride back to the Treasury. This involved lots of other camel owners yelling at Ahmed Abdullah (but, fortunately, not at us; it must have been an unrelated transgression). Apparently, he doesn't have a lot of friends in the camel world of Petra.

We rode out, past the Royal Tombs.

Then we got back on our camels for the ride back to the Treasury. This was where it became self-evident to me that Ahmed Abdullah traveled everywhere he went leaving a wake of frustration, confusion, and acrimony. This is not to say that it wasn't partly my fault; Billy understood the negotiations as Ahmed Abdullah had understood them: that we would owe 20.000 JD ($28.25) each for the trip down to the Colonnaded Street and then back to the Treasury. But I thought we would owe only 7.000 JD each ($9.89), which would have been the cost for the (shorter) one-way trip. In my defense, though, it would have been easier to understand if our negotiation hadn't come in the midst of lots of yelling and a fast getaway.

The money thing was only a problem, though, insofar as I didn't have the 40.000 JD to settle up with Ahmed Abdullah. Fortunately, he had a friend nearby who was able to take my last hundred dollar bill, give me back $40, and give Ahmed Abdullah his share. So I lost $3.47 on the quick-and-dirty 3:2 exchange rate, but I was able to put Ahmed Abdullah behind me.

So we met up with the horse cart boy and exited the Siq as we had come in. When the Nabateans ran the place, there were several routes in and out of Petra, as it made its name and fortune on trade. But now, to protect the site, there's only one way in and one way out. I had hoped to get some pictures in the Siq to highlight the differences between what one finds there and what one finds in the Wadi Musa – but this time the driver was in a hurry, racing past other carts and bellowing for pedestrians to clear the way in as many languages as he could remember.

Considering the money situation, I was worried that I still owed something to the horse cart guy. But fortunately, he didn't even seem to want a tip. As soon as he got us to the entry gate, he started negotiating with other tourists before we could even scramble out of the cart.

So Petra was a financial chokepoint for the trip: 42.000 JD ($59.32) for the two admission tickets, 30.000 JD ($42.37) for the horse cart, $60 for the camels, 60.000 JD ($84.75) for the donkeys, 24.000 JD ($33.90) for two meals in the restaurant on the Colonnaded Street. So, not including tips, Cokes, and Snickers bars, we spent about $280. I came to the perspective that the ruined, but spectacular, irrigation flumes of the Nabateans had magically transformed to work on money instead of water. But Petra was the focus of the entire vacation, and I'm still glad that I didn't skimp. We saw what we wanted to see, without feeling rushed, and Petra was an immensely satisfying experience.

Considering the fact that I was running out of both Jordanian and American currency, and didn't want to find out what would happen if I came up short, my first order of business outside Petra was to find an ATM and take out 250.000 JD, which I anticipated would last me through our departure. (In fact, 150.000 JD would have been sufficient.)

Then we bought gas and had the first of only two experiences where someone actually tried to trick us out of money. The guy stopped the pump at 5.000 JD, pretending that he thought that's what I wanted. When I told him I wanted a fill-up, he said we would just add 5.000 JD to the total. Then, he attempted to convince me that we needed to add the 5.000 JD twice, which he endeavored to do by (1) placing himself between me and the readout on the gas pump, (2) obfuscating the total, (3) speaking English pretty well when necessary, and (4) not understanding English when it suited his convenience. It was easy to resolve: I stood my ground, walked around him to the pump, and spoke Arabic to him – but it was a disappointment to encounter this behavior. Jordan has a reputation as a very honest, welcoming culture, and I'd hate to see that cultural climate change. I should acknowledge though that he was just a kid, and had a friend staffing the pump with him, and was probably trying to show off. Still, it bothered me. Still does.

Then we drove down to Wadi Rum, and enjoyed the desert scenery.  Jordan's deserts are not of the cookie-cutter variety.  In fact, I suspect that – at least in the western areas – you could take a Jordanian blindfolded anywhere among these deserts, and find upon removing the blindfold that she or he could pinpoint the location within about 50 km based merely on the topography and color of the sand. I really wish I had realized this from the start, so I could have gotten a few pictures to showcase the amazing specificity of the desert landscapes.

Approaching EN Wadi Rum AR وادي رم , we saw a Bedouin father and two of his daughters by the side of the road. Eager to assuage my guilt for my mishandling of the camel negotiations in Petra, and to have a pleasant experience after the attempted rip-off at the gas pump, I offered them a ride.  The original plan had been to take them to where the Rum village road branches off, but we were running early, so I took them all the way to their home in EN Deesih AR ديسه , which was about 10 km up the other fork.  Apparently this was an act of generosity that could not be repaid with a simple "Thanks! Can I give you a dinar or two for gas?"  Indeed, we were invited into their home (actually the outdoor, inside-the-wall, area used for entertaining), and offered the best tea of the trip (with mint leaves!). Then came rice-stuffed grape leaves, which the man's wife told us came from their personal grape vine, toward which she gestured at the edge of the enclosure.  Then we were brought rice-stuffed peppers, and rice-stuffed squash (I think; they weren't familiar shapes, and I didn't recognize the words).  All of the children were brought out to meet us (about fifteen of them; there must have been other wives that we didn't meet). Then we were introduced to the neighbors and exchanged e-mail addresses.  Finally, we bade our goodbyes and went to our appointment EN Rum AR رم .

One of the highlights in our trip planning had been arranging to spend the night in a desert camp in Wadi Rum, and this was the night that we had planned it. So we were concerned at having gone from slightly early to very late, and raced from Deesih to Rum. One amusing anecdote arose when I called Saleem, the camp leader, on Billy's cell phone to let him know we were running behind: I mispronounced Deesih as "Diseeh"; Saleem heard this as "the sea" and thought we had overshot Rum substantially and landed in Aqaba on the Red Sea. He was relieved that we were only 15 km off course. And, fortunately, he was not upset – and said that helping a Bedouin family was a good excuse.

We left the rental car in Rum as Saleem sent us to camp with one of his compatriots in a desert-capable Land Cruiser. Saleem held back, waiting for another group that was due to arrive.

Traveling to the camp involved driving to the southern edge of the gridlike arrangement of Rum, and then literally driving off the edge of the town into the untamed desert. The camp consisted of two tents, a conversation area, and two permanent structures (as required by the government of Jordan to protect Wadi Rum) – a kitchen and a bathroom. All sat at the foot of an immense cliff at the edge of a huge flat valley.

To put that in perspective, here's a satellite view of where the road ends in the village of Rum:

Satellite View of Rum

We explored the camp, and then a short time later Saleem arrived with the other group: a family from Strassbourg, with whom I enjoyed chatting in French.

In the camp, we ate mensaf (delicious lamb, rice, and bread) and drank tea under a nearly full moon (which really helped in finding the bathroom about 50 meters from the tent). We shared an awkward moment at dinner when the French father asked whether they were still called "freedom fries" in America. (For those who have forgotten this particular debacle: Back when the Iraq War didn't seem like an unmitigated disaster, cooler heads prevailed in France. To punish France for its independence, government-run cafeterias in the U.S. renamed "French fries" as "freedom fries." The French embassy wisely limited its response, offering but two simple observations: (1) "We are at a very serious moment dealing with very serious issues and we are not focusing on the name you give to potatoes," and (2) French fries come from Belgium.)

Throughout the trip Billy and I found it easy to bond with the Europeans and Middle Easterners that we met by playing on our mutual distaste for American foreign policy under the Bush administration. And I took the opportunity to ask the folks here if they ever met Americans who supported Bush, either while traveling or at home in Strassbourg. Their response: "Actually, we've never met anyone who supports him." This is when it struck me why people like Americans (thank goodness) even though they hate America: because (generally) only the good Americans travel. The country may be divided into blue states and red states, but the passports all are blue. (Well, except the ones used by officials; those are red.)

So night fell, and everyone repaired to their respective rooms in the tents – except for the Bedouin, who slept in the open air.

I wasn't sleepy yet, and went to sit in the quiet moonlit grandeur of Wadi Rum and prepare the draft for this report. It took a while to catalog the pictures and summarize this very busy day, but I finally closed with the following (unedited) paragraph, which still brings me a flood of fond memories:

Sat on a rock, looking out at moonlit Wadi Rum, to write this first draft – but it's about 10:00 and the night chill is starting to descend, so I'm retreating to my tent.

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