Petra the hard way - Part 1

 The following day in the morning I took a few pictures from the canyon where we spent the night

Yellowish on one side

 And redish on the other

Then it was breakfast time!

Bread with olive oil and some spices.... quite nice.

 first you wet your piece of bread in the olive oil...

and then on the spices...

All irrigated with a nice cup of tea. There was also some cheese if you wanted.

With a full stomach we packed everything in the truck and made our way out of the valley to the same small shop where we were picked up (that's where we left our car).

Right in front of the shop there was a small train station with an old train that was built exclusively for the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" and now they use it for shows every so often... It does a 15Km journey full of tourists while some locals dressed as arabs trying to asault the train...

After that small de-tour we made our way to Petra... our final destination for the day...

Let me start by saying that this is one of those situations where you are not supposed to do what we did...

We left Wadi Rum early in the morning, but the way to Petra is long... specially because you have to go through the Kings Way which is very picturesc but certainly not a fast road by any means.

By the time we got to Petra was 10 am which in Europe woud be a nice time in the morning to do some tourism... here in Jordan... not so much... the temperature already approaching the 30C. So my adivice for anyone going to Petra is to go to the gate at 6am in the morning, spend the night there  and be ready early in the morning so that by mid-day you can be back ready to relax in a swimming pool...

There are quite a few trails you can try in Petra

Today we  did 1 and 2 (the main trail which you can't avoid as you need to do that in order to do any other after, and the Al-Kubtha trail).

The Al-Kubtha trail is the green one on the right hand side.

The main trail starts at the village and you start walking down a wide path with an extra area on your left for the horses... because yes, you can do the first trail by horse or even a horse carriage if riding is not your thing. As you enter the main path you'll be harrassed to no end by the locals trying to get you to ride their horses/carriages.

You are only allowed to do the first trail by horse, all the other trails you can only do by walking, camel or donkey (depending on the trail) and you'll get continuously harrased to do some trail by trying every beast under the sun... we were strong and resisted the temptation we never had to ride some poor beast while the owner beats the crap out of it to keep them going...

In any case... the first things you can see as you walk down the main trail is the Djin blocks which are some of the earliest tombs in Petra (they are 26 know Djin blocks in Petra)

And there are some more interesting features along the way

And then... at last the best part of the trail... the Siq

It cannot be appreciated how amazing this place is, not only you can enjoy walking between the narrow walls but some are decorated with some Nabataean inscriptions

 Something hard to appreciate in most pictures is the water channels on both sides of the walls... The Nabataeans were bringing water from Wadi Musa (the valley where the modern town of Petra is located)

Nowadays, most of the sculptures have been eroded but these walls were decorated like below

Hard to see now but there is camel caravan depicted above.

And then... right at the end of the Siq...

The treasury

It is truly one of the most breathtaking images coming out of the Siq and finding this temple in the middle of the desert. It's hard to imagine what it must have been like 2000 years ago arriving by camel and finding this city in the middle of the desert.