Petra

Jordan is synonymous with a great basketball player, an English model, an unsuccessful Formula 1 team, one of Josh's cousins and of course the Jordan–Schönflies theorem in geometric topology. But it's also home to one of the seven wonders of the modern world, Petra.

We left the house on Wednesday at 6:33am, took a car to the Jordan River/Sheik Hussein border crossing, a taxi to some town we still aren't sure of, a minibus to Amman, a taxi through Amman, and a minibus to arrive in Wadi Musa at 3:07pm.

We spent all of Thursday in the Nabataean city of Petra. The first 3 hours were spent with our excellent guide Wael Al-Sa'ad. Here he is showing us the various products which were traded by the Nabataean caravans.  

 

Before you reach the city you must pass through a narrow shaft called the Siq which helped to defend the city against invasion. Here we are at the end of the Siq with the overexposed treasury behind us.

And moments later with the Treasury, also known as Al Khazneh.

Tourists these days are not allowed inside. But here is a picture from 1938 of an archaeologist called Henry Jones Jr. on his last crusade.

Here we are getting married again in the traditional Nabataean way.

The entire site has over 500 tombs.

The amphitheatre was built by the Nabataeans based on Roman design.

One thing that we weren't prepared for was the interesting colours of the rocks. The oxidation caused all colours from turquoise, to yellow to black.  

The Romans took over Petra in the year 106 by restricting the water supply to the city. This view shows the remains of the Roman street with the Palace tomb in the background. 

We took some donkeys, or more accurately, they took us up the 800 stairs to the Monastery.

That's Yaz in the middle

Here are some dogs leading a donkey

At the end of the day we climbed to the high place of sacrifice to see everything again but from higher up.