Petra and back again

At the Abadi bus station a man asked us (I had met another traveller on the bus from Damascus heading to Petra) if we wanted a taxi. How much, we asked. Meter he told us. We asked him to take us to the Wahabit bus station to transfer to a bus to Petra. A man got into the front seat. He looked like a dirty version of Moses. "To Petra?" he asked. "Come take my taxi. Fifteen dinars each. Thirty total. Air conditioned. The bus is 12.50 dinars." We told him no. He persisted. Finally he got out of the cab.

While stopped in traffic another man boarded the front of the taxi. He wanted fifty dinars for the ride. We told him no. "Maybe no bus," he said. We said maybe. He got out. The driver mimed talking with his hands. "Too much," he said. We agreed. At the station a cafe owner directed us to the bus. We each paid 2.50 dinars and were on our way.

At Wadi Musa, a man greeted the bus. He had rooms for five dinars and so I agreed. That afternoon I restocked film. The man invited me to tea and we sat chatting about his family. Soon two of his friends appeared and they took tea. One man, from Amman, recently started working in a tourist hotel in Wadi Musa. It was his first time to Petra. I told him it wasn't far from Amman. He shrugged.

At the Sanabel Mechanical Bakery, fresh loaves fell from a conveyer belt from the ceiling. I purchased three hot flat round loaves and went back to the hotel to rest. The night porter invited me to sit with him for a while and we watched Iraq and Saudi Arabia play in a Middle East cup match. He told me that he was a bedouin; that most of the people in Wadi Musa were. He told me that twenty years ago you could still find tents and goats in the valley, but now it had become built up with tourism. He told me he had a girlfriend but that it was difficult in this culture. He saw her once a week, but then said that once a week was enough. As the hour drew late I bid him good night and went to bed.

At five-thirty the next morning I got up and prepared to visit Petra. Walking down the road to the entrance, the sun was just coming up over the valley ridge. I paid my admission and began walking down to the siq and then through it. The entrance to Petra lies at the end of a long corridor formed by tectonic forces. At the end of the 1.2 kilometer defile (which at points measures no more than 10 meters across) you get your first glimpse of the Khazneh, nicknamed the Treasury by locals in a mistaken belief that pirates had stored their treasure there. Photographers waited for the sun to rise and shine on the red sandstone. I continued walking through the almost deserted city. Reaching the far side, I decided to climb up to the Monestary, a structure carved into the rock that echoes the Khazneh. The sun was rising up behind its facade.

Coming back down to the city I returned to the Khazneh to catch the sun. I took pictures and met a bedouin man who tried to sell me some jewelry. He introduced himself as Khaled and when I asked him about the snake monument he told me I should climb to the Sacrificial High Place for its views over Petra and then go down the back way, past the Garden Triclinium and then to the Snake Monument that way. I thanked him and did just that.

Atop the Sacrificial High Place, a 30-year-old English man was pointing out sites. I asked him about Aaron's Tomb, and he pointed to a white mosque high up in the mountains. He said the Snake Monument was about halfway there. He had worked as a tourguide in the area, and also in China and told me he was on his way through Central Asia and then into China by the silk road. He was returning to Yangshou to visit friends. I thanked him for his direction and set off back down the mountain and towards the Snake Monument.

I ate lunch in the shadow a temple below the Monument. En route I had met a man shepharding sheep who told me that I had but 20 minutes to walk from the edge of the main town. I thought about trying the 5km walk to the Tomb, but decided I didn't have enough water. Then below I saw a dark-skinned man leading a Caucasian woman. Thinking he was a guide I decided to follow them.

Back on the main road I looked at the footprints in the dirt, deciding that a flat print with a circle in the heel must be those of the sandals worn by the woman. And so I set off to follow them. An hour or so later I caught up with them. They were a French couple. He worked in Amman with a Spanish medical relief NGO and she was a midwife in Paris. He was supposed to be based in Baghdad but had started just as all the NGO's decided to pull out of the city. He laughed when I told him that I was about to return to the main city of Petra when I saw them pass, thinking him a guide. We walked and chatted and followed the road around back and then up Jebel Haroum.

When the main road ended we followed a small path up into the mountains. A few hundred meters from the summit it ended. The views over the valley and surrounding plains were stunning, but in the absence of a logical way to go, and with the path hugging the edge of the mountain, we turned back.

Just back down the main road, we saw a bedouin child tending goats. We asked him about the tomb. He pointed back the way we came and then right, up the mountain, from when we had just come. We asked again and he pointed again, flicking his wrist to the right. Dominique frowned, muttering that he must be talking about a path only donkeys can tread and we continued back down the mountain. An hour later we came upon a cross roads. The white mosque that marked the place where Moses's brother glinted in the sun. This was where I paused, then followed Alex's sandal-prints. We guessed that the right fork would have been a more direct way, but the hour was getting late and we set off back towards Petra.

Back in the main area we drank 2 litres of water in a minute and a half. The sun had scorched us. They were leaving the next day; she is on a plane back to Paris on Saturday. I sat in the shade of the rest stop for a while and then climbed to see the Silk, Urn, and Corinthian Tombs. Then it was the long uphill walk back to town. People offered donkeys and horses and carts back to the gate but I turned them away. At the end of such a long day, I barely made it back. I sat with Fahley, the night porter, and watched some more football, before climbing the stairs to my third floor room and to bed.

This morning my calves ached. My legs were stiff. I thought I had pulled a muscle. But I stretched and slowly made my way back down to Petra. There were but a few things I neglected the day before due to the nature of my legs after the 10km return hike that I had done (and this after climbing stairs to two of the other main attractions and walking the length of the main city twice). Exiting the Siq I ran into Khaled. He was impressed that I had walked as far as I had. "Strong," he said. No, I shook my head. Just determined. But I told him that while I had almost made it to the top of the mountain the path ended. He told me there should be two bedouin police at the mosque but I said I couldn't find the path. He told me there were stairs, and I surmised that we had gone the wrong way around the back. I told him next time I would go, maybe with donkeys. He asked what I had planned today. I told him just the museum and then back to rest. He bade me a good journey.

I walked the length of the city to find the museum closed. I rested in the shade, chatting with an English woman resting bofore her ascent to the Monestary. I told her it didn't take long. She guessed the guides estimated longer to convince you to take a donkey. After eating a brief repast I walked back towards the entrance, climbing some small hills to see the recently excavated church and then across a wash to the Tomb of Sextius Florentinus, which I had missed the day before, having stopped at the Palace Tomb.

There two bedouin women sat with a child. They bade me sit and have tea. I did and looked over their wares. Soon another woman joined us who spoke better english, and who drove a hard bargain. I sat for a while, drinking cup after cup of tea while we bargained and chatted. She offered a guide to Aaron's Tomb, and I said I had already gone and, while I had missed the Tomb, would only go again on another trip.

After our transactions were finished I thanked them for the tea and prepared to take my leave of Petra. Near the Treasury I ran into Khaled. He beamed. "Finished?" he asked, drawing a hand before him, palm down. I nodded. "Come to my village have tea?" I told him I was too tired; that I should write my mother and then I needed to rest my legs. He nodded and took a silver bracelet from his arm. "For you," he said. I protested. "No," he said. "For you, friend." I thanked him and shook his hand. "Next time, tea," he said. I smiled and agreed. Next time. Posted by eku at May 14, 2004 1:07 PM