Journey to Jordan

This weekend all of us in the BYU Jordan study abroad program got together to go tour Petra. This is the last major tourist trip that we all did together as a group: first we went to Cairo and Egypt, about a month later we went to Israel/Palestine, and now, three months into the program, we finally did Petra. It was really cool!

Jordan has a lot of ancient ruins, but Petra is the most famous of them all. Remember Indiana Jones? They filmed the last part of the third movie in Petra, the one with the holy grail. There are a couple of touristy shops next to the visitor’s center named after Indiana Jones (there’s another one named after Titanic, oddly enough). Besides Indiana Jones and the Treasury, I think that some of the other ruins were an inspiration for some scenes from Dinotopia. I’m sure there are other ways in which this site has influenced the imaginations of artists and writers across the world. It really is a fantastic place.

We left Friday right after church, and after a four hour drive through desert country that looked exactly like West Texas (no joke–the only thing that made it different was the lack of horsehead oil pumps, but in every other way it was EXACTLY the same), we arrived at our hotel in the town of Wadi Musa.

We set out early the next day to tour the ruins. I was pretty excited–I had the main theme song of Indiana Jones in my head and I probably annoyed a few people by humming it every now and again. Entrance to Petra is WAY expensive if you’re just a regular tourist (around 50 JD, which is maybe $70), but most of us had University of Jordan IDs, so we got in for only 1 JD. Hooray for student discounts!

Petra was the capitol of the ancient Nabatean kingdom, which reached its height around 100 AD, right before the Romans conquered and annexed it. The kingdom was ruled by Arab nomads who migrated from the Arabian penninsula and settled along several of the major trade routes in the area. At first, they made a living by raiding the merchant caravans, but then they figured that they could get even richer by taxing them (which amounts to just about the same thing, doesn’t it?). Fortunately for the Nabateans, the two major Hellenistic kingdoms that were their major rivals were locked in a war, so the Nabateans quickly rose to prominence, mingling their native pagan beliefs and artistic styles with Roman and Greek influences. Kind of like what the Arab world is doing today in its interaction with the West, actually.

I spent the day hanging out with Katie, who is our resident archeology major. She spent the first six weeks of the study abroad living in a local Bedouin village and working at a dig here. It was really cool to listen to her comments and ask her questions (even though I probably sounded REALLY annoying by the end of the day). I asked her what were some of the most amazing things about Petra, and she listed three things for me: the way the Nabateans used water in their religious rites, the way that they venerated their dead, and the way that they represented Dushari, the father God, as a non-representation (basically, instead of making an image, they represented him as a giant stone cube, and we saw several of them in Petra).

But honestly, the thing that makes Petra really cool and mysterious is that we know almost nothing about the Nabateans. They left no writings, only a few historians from other civilizations wrote anything about them, and after the trade routes shifted they practically disappeared from the face of history. We know that they are the ancestors of the modern Arabs, but that’s about it.

That, and they left some REALLY cool ruins.

The city of Petra was hidden in the middle of a bunch of really steep, rocky mountains. The only way in or out was through one of the narrow canyons that cut through the mountains into the valley between them. The main one is called the Siq, and you follow it for about half a mile before you come to the ancient city. It’s a slot canyon with sheer cliffs on either side, like Wadi Mujib almost but without water. On either side, you can see where the Nabateans dug channels for water. A lot of archeologists think that the Siq was used for Nabatean religious processions.

When you get to the end and the Siq opens up, you find yourself facing the most magnificent ruin that Petra has to offer: the Treasury. This was the site they used in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for the temple of the holy grail. It is WAY cool, and surprisingly well preserved.

Funny enough, there is nothing inside–just a square room, with a couple of closets on either side. It doesn’t even go that deep. For all the stunning beauty of the facade, you’d think there’d be something really cool inside, but there isn’t.

The Treasury is one of the most amazing of the tombs cut out of the sheer rock face, but it is by no means the only one. There are literally hundreds of tombs and caves cut into the mountains–you cannot go ANYWHERE in Petra without seeing them. Most of them are a lot less grandiose than the Treasury, but they are EVERYWHERE. I found this out when I went up to the High Place of Sacrifice with Katie and a bunch of other people.

We walked down the canyon a little ways until we found a path leading up the same mountain from which the Treasury was carved. There is a path there that goes up for quite a ways, and we had a very brisk hike getting up to the top. Along the way, we had a really excellent view of the royal tombs and the valley in which the freestanding buildings of the city were built. The rocks are really good for climbing, and a couple of times we strayed off from the path to climb up to lookouts and clifftops for magnificent views of the entire park. Pretty cool.

Petra is full of Bedouins–in fact, before the place was turned into a park, they used to use the ancient tombs as homes and hangout places. The government built a village for them just to the North of the park, but you can see them everywhere, offering donkey and camel rides (which they call “air conditioned taxis”), selling random trinkets (and rocks, believe it or not), and down on the main drag near the theater, selling drinks and water. There are goats everywhere, and goat and donkey crap as well, but it’s not that bad. On the way up to the High Place of Sacrifice, we passed by a few Bedouins selling stuff and quite a few goats. Pretty cool.

The High Place of Sacrifice is basically an alter carved into the summit of the mountain. I noticed that its situated so that the priest faces the sunset as he offers the sacrifice. There wasn’t much up there, but the view was definitely worth it.

I had a really good time climbing up and coming down that mountain. In fact, I was jumping off of rocks and running all over the place. On the way down, we passed a TON of caves, tombs, and ruined waterworks, and we took some time at all the major ones to check them out. Climbed an old Nabatean staircase set in the wall to see a cistern, only to find it dry with a bunch of goats hanging out under the shade of a tree. Found an old relief of a Lion with the head missing and a channel for water, which would have come out of his mouth. Later on, we came to an old Roman triclinium and soldier’s tomb, carved (like everything else) out of the beautiful red and yellow stone in the mountains.

Nikki had gotten separated from the rest of us at the Treasury and took a mule up to the Monastery on the far side of the city. We got back from our explorations around midday and met up with her at the Theater. Katie encouraged a whole bunch of people to go up to the Monastery, which is quite a hike but is supposed to be really cool. She tried to convince me to go, but I decided to hang out with her, Nikki, Cory, and Gini instead, since they were all planning on hiking up above the Treasury later. We decided to check out the Roman ruins and the Byzantine mosaics before heading up.

As amazing and numerous as the tombs are, carved into the faces of the cliffs, the main section of the city probably consisted of freestanding buildings between the mountians, almost NONE of which are remaining. NONE. Just a few Roman ruins, from after the annexation of the kingdom. I must have REALLY annoyed Katie, because I just couldn’t believe that all of this sandy, rocky desert we were walking over used to be a giant Nabatean city. It’s crazy. I guess they weren’t as good at engineering their cities as the Romans were.

We saw the Brown temple, named after Brown University which is reconstructing it. They even fly their own University flag there! It’s way funny. If I had a BYU Bookstore bag, I would have taken the Brown flag down and gotten a picture with the bag on the flagpole for the annual BYU Bookstore contest. But since I’m an employee, I guess I can’t participate in that contest anymore. Meh. The temple was pretty cool, as far as ruins go.

We hung out for a while at the top of Qasr al-Bint, chatting about life, the study abroad, and various random things. Got into a really interesting discussion about how the girls in our group carry themselves in this very conservative Arab culture, how much we should conform to local mores and what it means to be a good guest, etc. Mostly, though, we just had a good, relaxing time.

From there, we saw the tiny little museum they have right there and had some vanilla ice cream with pistacios and honey. As we hung out under the shade, we played the word association game where you go around in a circle and say the first word that comes to mind after whatever the previous person says. It was really fun, but after a while I just ran out of words and nothing came to mind. Gini was like “this isn’t a high stakes game, Joe! You don’t have to be so uptight!” and I started crying “respect me!” an inside joke which made her and Nikki burst out laughing for nearly half a minute.

Honestly, though, I think I have become kind of tense these last few weeks, which doesn’t keep me from having fun but is a very interesting change from the way I usually am back home. It’s something I should write about later, either here or in my personal journal (or both places).

The Byzantine mosaics were pretty cool. I want to shake the hand of whoever had the idea to put a giant tent roof over the whole thing. I have no idea what the Byzantines were doing in Petra, but apparently they were there.

We then made the climb to the view of the Treasury, around two o’clock in the afternoon when it was HOT. There was a nice breeze, but the sun was still shining very bright and we were all really sweaty. The trail began at the back of the royal tombs and started off with nearly four hundred stairs. HOLY COW. I was REALLY tired at this point (all of that running up and down the trail from before was starting to get to me) and it was really hard to climb those stairs.

At this point, it was just the five of us–no other tourists, no other Bedouins or even any goats or goat crap. There were Nabatean ruins, even at the top of this mountain–I rested for a while in what looked like a small hut, carved into a freestanding rock, and in my Palestinian Shemagh everyone thought that I was an Arab at first (I’d walked ahead of the group a little ways). We reached the top of the stairs and continued down a trail that was barely marked, talking, sweating, and singing “all these things that I’ve done” by The Killers. It really was just the five of us up there.

It seemed like we’d walked forever when I finally caught a familiar sight just under the opposite cliff face of the canyon we were approaching. I shouted “it’s the Treasury!” and apparently I started running, because that’s what Gini remembers (she and Nikki think it’s really funny and bring it up every now and again…and yeah, I guess it was kind of funny. I was just really excited for everything).

It was a hard climb, especially at the end of the day, but it was TOTALLY worth it. BEAUTIFUL view of the Treasury. We were almost four or five hundred feet up, perched on the edge of a sheer cliff, and we could see and hear all the tourists below, as well as the Treasury itself. Stupendous.

By this time, I was starting to feel kind of weak. I’d lost my appetite sometime the day before, and the Arab food at the hotel dinner just didn’t appeal to me much. Neither did the breakfast, and I hadn’t brought much of a lunch with me. I was really well hydrated, but I don’t think that I had a lot of energy. In any case, when we headed back, I started to worry about how I was feeling.

Me and Gini were going to walk down the way we came, but Nikki convinced us to go down this really steep climb right next to where we were sitting. Even though it was slow going and I wasn’t feeling that well, I’m really glad we took it because it was a lot faster, and it was nearly 4:00 when our charter bus was leaving for the hotel (we could have stayed longer, but then we’d have to pay for our own transportation–and prices around Petra are steep).

The walk back up the Siq was literally hellish. As in, hell is probably just like this. One tortuous step in front of another for nearly half an hour without feeling like you’re actually getting anywhere. I probably should have hired one of the mules or something, because looking back I think I was suffering from heat exhaustion. When we arrived at the main gate, I splashed myself with water from the drinking fountain and got a whole bunch of people around there wet. I didn’t even care–I knew that if I didn’t do SOMETHING, I was going to pass out.

Despite the difficult walk back, we arrived in time to catch the bus, but even though I was laying back in my seat I didn’t feel like I was getting any rest. I tried to ask Nikki about something, and she replied “I think you’re delirious, Joe.” I probably was. When we got to the hotel, the key wasn’t there at the front desk, so I climbed up the stairs, knocked at the door…and nobody answered. I threw my stuff down and collapsed on one of the couches in the lobby, trying to gain the strength to find the room where Nikki, Gini, and Katie were staying and ask them to have the guy behind the desk open my door. I honestly didn’t think I’d have the strength to climb up those stairs again if I went down them.

I ended up knocking on the wrong door, so I went down and asked the guy myself. Thankfully, I was able to climb the stairs. When I got into my room, I ate some dried apricot paste stuff that I’d brought with me, and immediately started to feel better. I did the test to see if I was having a stroke (say your name, raise your hand, and construct a complete sentence), and since I passed it I figured things weren’t that bad. After a nice cold shower and a nap, I was feeling much better.

We had two days in Petra, but when the next day came around, I ended up just sitting it out. I was still kind of tired the next morning, and even though I knew I could probably go out and see the city again, I knew I wouldn’t really enjoy it. Still, it was hard not to feel like I was lame to stick around the hotel. Fortunately, it was a fairly nice hotel, with internet access and a nice pool. I didn’t swim, but I did hang out and get a lot of homework done.

However, because I didn’t go out the second day, I didn’t see the monastery, something that I hear is really, really cool. I kind of wish that I could see it…but I knew that it was for the best, even if it was a little boring just to sit things out. One day was enough to have the experience that I wanted to have, even if there was a whole bunch of stuff there that I didn’t see.

I think it goes without saying that if you ever find yourself in Jordan, go down and see Petra. It is a WAY cool place, different from any of the other ruins I’ve seen anywhere else. I had an AWESOME time!