One of the wonders of the world!

About five weeks ago, some international agency released the “winners” of the Seven New Wonders of the World, and on that list sits Petra, in my very own Jordan.

Yesterday we had an excursion to this newly-minted wonder.

We 14 KA explorers started out early—a little after 6:00 a.m. to make the 3-hour trek. Tucked away in a remote valley basin in Southern Jordan is the fabled ancient city of Petra. I had seen photos of some of the monuments, but I wasn’t quite sure what Petra was—a funerary monument? An acropolis? A palace? An archaeological park? But I knew I wanted to go. After all, it is Jordan’s #1 tourist attraction.

We stop for breakfast along the way (hummus and yogurt, hummus and yogurt, everyone sing the chorus together, hummus and yogurt) and arrived about 10:00 at the bus drop-off point. I had been warned: do not forget a hat, sunscreen, and lots of water.

The first thing I see is the “Indiana Jones Snack Shop,” reminding myself how Steven Spielberg shot on location here for the third installment of the Harrison Ford series. Once you pay your admission (about $32) you are immediately thrown into the rocky landscape of the desert. You walk on what is called “The Siq,” a dramatic 2 mile entrance way to the ancient city through a high, narrow gorge. It looks really cool, especially as you come into these canyons that are so high and tilted and a little forbidding. If any of you know the contemporary sculptor, Richard Serra, he creates sculptures that look just like these canyon walkways.

Then all of a sudden, through the canyon walls you glimpse a sliver of a façade, and you remember the photos you have seen. It was so incredible, because as you get a wider angle, the John Williams “Indiana Jones” movie score starts sounding in your head! You come through this long canyon, and there is the Treasury, the flagship tourist monument of Jordan dominating the entrance to Petra. It is grand. It is breathtaking. No wonder Steven Spielberg asked to film the “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” at Petra! This façade was designed to impress, and in the 2000 years since it was crafted, the effect is undiminished. It is so well-preserved too. It is cut deep into the rock face, and concealed in a high-walled ellipse of the valley—somehow shielded from rain and wind and it has been protected from day one. The detailing of the capitals and pediments on the 150-foot tall façade is so crisp. So this is the entrance to Petra, a greek word for “rock.” Here we are at the entrance to an entire city carved into the rock complete with classical facades, reminding the art historian in all of us of the influence and spread of classical architectural structures. My first 360 degree turn of the head ensures that this is a place rich in historical and natural drama.

Of course we all go photo-crazy. I just looked at the camera and I took a dozen shots essentially of the same thing, but you might have missed one angle of the spectacular sight. Okay—before I go further, let’s have a little history.

Petra was the seat of the Nabatean empire, and an important stop on caravan routes to Arabia and the Red Sea. Nope, I had never heard of the Nabatean empire either, but they were enemies of the mighty Assyrians, so they must have been something. At the empire’s peak (first century BCE and first century CE) 30,000 people lived in Petra, and it challenged the might of commercial Rome. Archaeologists tell us that this was a city with sumptuous gardens, and an incredible system of accessing water, providing the citizens with Bellagio-hotel like fountains. It seems a 4th century earthquake caused considerable damage and a decline set in to the area.

In the 19th century a Swiss daredevil decided to explore the area. He had heard tales of an amazing ancient city locked away in the heart of an impenetrable mountain. He connived his way into finding it, and as he came out of the Siq back in 1812, and saw the Treasury (the building I just encountered), he recorded his thoughts into a secret journal. A few years later he published his journal and the rediscovery of Petra became a hot topic among other adventurers looking for new glamorous sights to behold. Artists and poets soon took up the romantic mysteries of this long-forgotten city, and a trickle of tourists began coming to this off-the-beaten track sight.

It is more than a building. It is a city. I guess one way to describe it is, it is the Pyramids meet the Taj Mahal inside the Grand Canyon with reminders of Las Vegas. Wow.

One added element that made the entire trip more special was that our colleague Salwa joined the 14 of us for the trip. Salwa works at KA, and comes from Petra. She has an extraordinary family story. Her mother, an Englishwoman, came to Petra as a young woman, fell in love with a native Bedouin, stayed and married him. They raised their family in a cave, and started a tourist business in Petra. Their daughter is Salwa, our colleague.

We trek down into the city center proper, and meet many of Salwa’s family. Everyone knows her, and greets us with warm hospitality. Salwa’s mother wrote a book about her experiences, entitled, “Married to a Bedouin.” Probably available on amazon.com… One of the pictures in the book has toddler Salwa meeting Queen Noor and her guest, Queen Elizabeth II who had come to meet Salwa’s family. Can any of our family albums boast such a visit??

We meet uncles and cousins, they offer us tea, and then we set out to explore some of the caves, see where Salwa grew up in a cave (!). Then they invite us to a café for a buffet lunch. During lunch it seems this is a big day for Salwa’s family. They have just bought a new house, so in order to celebrate their good fortune, they have invited half the village tonight for a feast. Salwa says, “it’s a three-goat feast, so it’s a big deal!” Salwa’s mother invites us to come along tonight and join the party. Someone says, “but that’s 14 extra people.” Her mum says, “If you’re having half the village, what’s 14 more? It’s a 3-goat feast!” I have remembrances in my head of Sophia, the character on “Golden Girls” that came from a village in Sicily and always told stories that sounded like this night!

After lunch Salwa says it’s time to get serious about our exploring. We have some work to do. She can’t join us she says, she has the goats to cut up and roast at home. She commandeers her cousins to get us donkeys to help us with the trek.

I haven’t been on a horse since the late 1970s at Camp Kirkwood, and I don’t think I lasted too long on that horse then. So I decide to get on the donkey. Oh. My. I should have just hiked on my own! My donkey decides he has to be the first in line, the first to win the contest up the over 800 steps he is going to take me. Now, I know that sounds like a donkey I would want, but I wanted a slow, leisurely, love-the-shade, stay-by-the- mountain-not-by-the-cliff donkey. No I get a daredevil donkey. An incredibly nice, helpful colleague starts yelling advice, “Lean Back now John,” Lean Forward as he goes up John,” “Bring your heels down,” “Stabilize your weight John,” “You look great John!” Let me assure you, any notions I entertained about being somewhat of an Indiana Jones type, the donkey ride dispelled them.

I don’t know how long the donkey ride was. I know he traveled up hundreds of steps. With me. In the desert sun. Wondering if I would get to the 3-goat feast or not. Sadly, there are no photographs of this moment in my life, since the donkeys were not the leisurely type I felt I deserved.

Yet as the donkey lurched me up these hundreds of steps, I did, once or twice, admire the
colorful sandstone rock and jagged peaks of Petra. The colors remind me of the gorgeous area in Sedona, Arizona with the ochre and red stone. Mostly, though, I prayed I would get off the donkey. I should add, one of the other teachers, had a worse experience—his donkey ejected him. He is skinnier than I am. I did feel a little better.

Finally, there is a stretch of the walk that must be done on foot. All the donkeys know when it is time to part company. It is a long climb, but when you get there, and turn the corner, you are rewarded with the most imposing façade. It is called the Monastery, but is not a building really what that word implies. As you are walking, what is maybe an hour climb you think—am I tired of facades? Well, this sight is so stupendous, it also feels like an optical illusion! It is an hour’s climb easily, even with the scary donkey ride.

It is like the Treasury, but even taller, and even wider. They took a mountain, and carted away rubble, and crafted a façade that is just dreamy. For those hardy types, one can walk farther up to get even better views of the valley and the Monastery. Yeah, it’s like being on top of the world. Being a hardy type, I went.

I also spied this gorgeous little creature, which I learned is a Syrian Blue Lizard. On the top mountain is a souvenir stand—natch—and a Bedouin guy named Tasir that we talked to awhile. He has learned English from tourists, and sleeps in the Monastery at night, he said. He pointed out another mountain-top, a whole day’s climb, according to Tasir, called Jebel Haroun, a shrine to Moses’ brother Aaron, perched on a high summit.

Some smart entrepreneur put a café opposite the Monastery allowing for tea and postcards and pondering the walk down. Yeah, you have to go back.

On the walk down we sneaked into the archaeological dig of a 4th century mosaic church, a church just discovered by archaeologists in 1990. It was closed for the day, but having a shred of Indy Jones left, I scaled the wall. No kidding.

To make it a little easier on the walk to the Treasury we took camels. Now I have gone Middle Eastern! Not nearly as scary as the donkey, I felt stately, and even relaxed, considering I do not think I am a natural to ride animals.

Exhausted, we had to leave Petra, and walk back up through the Siq. Any visitor who comes to Jordan, we have to come here. It is taxing, but thrilling.

We make it back to the bus—it is only 6:30 p.m. but it feels like we have put in a 24-hour marathon at the gym. Salwa meets the bus to help the busdriver get to her house. Her house has a view of the valley that is stunning, and we arrive, they bring out pillows for us upon which to rest, and bring us fresh figs and tea. The relaxation is nice.

Well, an hour later, the villagers begin to arrive, and we quickly learned the order of social occasions in Bedouin parties—the sexes are segregated. The men gather on one patio, and the women on another—no mingling. No kidding. Soon the mightiest platters I have ever seen come out, resting on the patio itself, and groups of people start digging in. A little boy had come by so each of us could wash our right hand in a bowl, so we had clean hands with which to dig in. It was rice spread all around, with roasted peanuts, parsley, and goat. Crowning the platter, in the middle, was the goat’s head. I decided not to look at it very long, and just focused on getting yogurt sauce to go on top of the steaming food. There must have been 100 people at this 3-goat feast!

Since we had been gone a long time, and we worried about our driver’s fatigue, we begged off about 9:00 p.m. to make the drive back to KA. As we left, I thanked Salwa for inviting us, and started to offer her a hug—she quickly cut me off—“not here! Not now John!” I forgot that men and women do not share such levels of intimacy casually or publicly.

The day was one of sensory overload: from the colored sandstone of Petra, to the whooping sounds of children at the village party and the pulsing Arabic music on the bus, to the sweetest most delicate figs I could imagine, to the smells of the camels in the city square, to the sweaty grip on the donkey’s neck! We arrived back at midnight, exhausted. So many wonders in one day!

As trite as it sounds, “It looks like we aren’t in Kansas anymore.”