Petra – Rose-Red City

Left the Marriott Hotel in Amman at 7 am and reached the Petra in the South at around 10.30am. Its my second trip here but it’s always is a worthwhile visit which offers amazing panorama.

Today being mid April, is rather hot. Spent about 3 hours with my colleague, an exceptional geochemist from the City of Bradford, to explore the whole place, climbing up and down like what a geologist likes to do. Today being a public holiday, there are scores of tourists pouring into this little place. Must have been thousands.

The is the city of Nabetean Arabs, the cave dwellers, who inhibited this ancient city over 2000 years ago. All the buildings were carved out of the solid rock, which form the extensive face of the narrow valleys, which the city was built into. It was recently included as one of the new Seven Wonders of the World.

We also went to Little Petra – a much smaller but older version of the main Petra. There was hardly any tourist there – not that many people know the existence of Little Petra.

Our driver (cum our guide) was a talkative chap. He managed to describe the landscape of Jordan being divided into 3 areas. The west being the Jordan Valley forming the lowlands around the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galileo. The middle is the mountainous areas, which contain a lot of religious relics, cities (including Amman) and castles. The Eastern part is the dry rocky areas or the desert, which are the least interesting part except for the Wadi Rum to the South. The best time to visit is definitely March. It was scorching today.