Petra!!

Christmas Day

25 December 2012

Petra

Petra is awesome!!!

I expected Petra to be one of the trip highlights, but I totally underestimated all it had to offer.  I had initially thought that the famous Treasury building was the only high point it had to offer, and while the Treasury is incredible and is the icon for the site, but to think that is all Petra offers is very wrong.  Petra is over 100 square miles in area, and only a fraction of it has been excavated.  (The actual percentage of excavated area is a topic of debate, but the highest end says 40%, while the lower estimates go into single digits.)  I did climb to the monastery building, a hefty 30 minutes hike up steep steps from the basin, and the view from that perch was breathtaking.  I’ll never climb Mt. Everest, but in some small way looking out over the lands from that high vantage point helped me understand why people do elect to summit Everest.

One thing about Petra that is a bit controversial is the use of horses and donkeys to transport visitors.  Whether you elect to take advantage of it or not, the price of the entry ticket includes a horse ride from the entrance to the start of the Siq, but our guide pleaded with us not to ride the animals as many of them are abused.  There are, additionally, horse drawn carriages which, in theory, are for the elderly and disable only, but in actuality can be had by anybody for enough dinars.  Also, donkeys are available to take one up the steep hike to the monastery or point of sacrifice, but beyond possible animal abuse that is a very dangerous route for the rider as well—seeing a few people clinging to their beasts, it is very obvious that falls would be common.

One thing about being in an Islamic country for Christmas that felt odd was being away from the Christmas spirit.  Last year in Egypt I had that sort of bittersweet feeling, happy to be on holiday but a little sorry that I was missing out on the spirit of the day.  In Petra, I had the same regret, but it was mitigated, if not obliterated, when our guide took us into one of the shops and introduced us firsthand to frankincense and myrrh.  All of us have heard of these fragrant products, but few of us have seen or smelt them.  To do so on Christmas Day itself, in the heart of one of the major trade junctions in the Middle East, was a true joy.

Christmas dinner was pleasant, nothing overly fancy (far short of the cruise ship dinner last year), but it pleasing nonetheless.  I did meet a few of my traveling companions in the bar afterwards, and I bought them a round at the end.  This was an excellent compromise in that I was able to give something which they appreciated, but it was not an overly expensive thing either.