Illinois Williams

Petra, built by the Nabattaens, is one more set of ruins I've seen built by, well, ancient powerful assholes. It's amazing though, and I feel like Indiana Jones climbing through the ruins of past civilizations. It's in the southern desert of Jordan, and the Nabataens controlled the frankincense routes through these parts and made bank by taxing all the merchant caravans coming through, then started carving. To get this done, they must have drunk the Arabic coffee. Most of the ruins are from about 400 B.C. into Jesus's heyday, when the Romans took over and about 150,000 people lived here. It fell into decline under the Romans because a change of the trade routes and a couple earthquakes forced most people out, from what I gather by deciphering the ancient texts on the rock walls of course.
And... this is where they filmed Indiana Jones, when at the end they ride horses through a tall, narrow canyon and arrive at a temple in the rock. Member?


At night, they light up the 1.5 km entry-way and Treasury with candles, and musicians play the rebab (Bedouin spike fiddle) and flute. A very mysterious atmosphere. Surrounded by beautiful shadows and haunting sounds, my mind was left to imagine the ruins I would see the next day in the light.













Parts of the siq, the entry-way of canyon walls that were torn apart by tectonic forces, not water or wind.

























































The Treasury, which appears suddenly through the last curve of the siq.






































He's saying something, but I don't speak Arabic.













Pretty damn ingenious water delivery system. There were over 1.5km of inlaid terra-cotta pipes, weaving down through the siq.
































The amphitheatre.







































No big deal, piece of an ancient pillar off in the desert. The pile of shit seemed appropriate, for some reason- can you tell me?













The High Place of Sacrifice.






































This guy's on the phone. Why he'd want to be then I don't know, but he provided a good scope for the picture.













A few shots of the mountains that dissolve into the Wadi Araba, then the Negev desert in Israel.







































































Cafe on the high desert viewpoint.













The monastery, the highest building at Petra. This picture was taken by Khalid, who was closing up his shop and cafe(from previous picture), and we walked down together. We talked for a while, joking about tourists snapping their pictures and asking dumb questions. He graciously invited me back to his village, the Bedouin city built by the Jordanian government to basically get them out of Petra (see: $) They are usually semi nomadic- he explained they still sleep in the ruins when they wanted. On the way down, we stopped by another building where his friends were eating outside, and hammed it up and ate with them. Then we started walking towards his town. His friend Mohammed pulls up with 2 donkeys- of course we get on. We trot up the steep road for about 20 very fun minutes, that is something I don't do everyday. Khalid and I make our way through the town of Bedouins, and arrive at his house, where his Mom, three brothers and kids are eating. They very nicely give me a plate of potatoes and noddles in curry and yogurt, then some tea. I get to watch them interact during their after dinner talk, and the little children were very cute- children are about the same anywhere. Then Khalid says his brother will give me a ride into town, and that if I wanted, they could do a tour into the desert the next day. He didn't push, and I seriously doubt he lugged me all the way to his house just to sell the tour. I was able to see the daily life of Bedouin people- and I narrowly missed hearing more rebab, as Khalid says his uncle was the man playing the night before at the show in the ruins. We stopped by his house, but he was playing again that night. Damn, but what an experience. And of course I didn't shoot any pictures of it, as bad as I wanted to. I couldn't be the dumb tourist and ruin the interaction- it's for the best.