There are two ways to enter Petra. Through the main entrance, as we did yesterday, and through the back entrance. Today we attempt the second one. We park the car near the visitors centre of Petra. A (taxi) guy offers us a ride to little Petra (where we want to go) and lowers his price from 10 Jr pp to 10 Jr total. We accept and on the way he stops at a beautiful viewpoint and shows us a Bedouin water reservoir. It’s a nice guy in high need of more tourists. He
Like Petra, Little Petra is a Nabataean site, with buildings carved into the walls of the sandstone canyons. As the name suggests, it is much smaller than Petra. Archaeologists believe that the complex was a suburb of Petra, meant to house visiting traders on the Silk Road. After the decline of the Nabataeans, it fell vacant, used only by Bedouin nomads since then.
Little Petra has one thing to offer, Petra does not. It has a Painted House, a house with painted fresco’s on the ceiling (photo 2). They look amazing… I wonder if all the caves had paintings like that… or maybe even mozaïek on the floor? I love the homish athmosphere of Little Petra, it felt much less ceremonial than Petra. It feels like we are in a little Hobbit-village.
We climbe up the stairs at the end of Little Petra’s Main Street and reach a nice viewpoint with an even nicer Bedouin café. A guy with eyes charcoaled like Johnny Depp’s in Pirates of the Caribbean serves us coffee. The coffee is delicious, the place absolutely amazing and the guy intriguing. When he mentions it’s Black Friday in his souvenir shop, he shows to have much more knowledge of the western
world than one would expect from a Bedouin. I just wonder, whose idea was it to put black make-up around men’s eyes? I assume Johnny Depp got the idea from the nomad Arabs, and not the other way round… anyway… I am not complaining.
We go back to the entrance and start the trail to the Petra. It is about 6 kilometers through the valley. We jump on the shuttle for the last kilometer. Then the real work starts with stairs that climbe and descend the rocks. Absolutely stunning views again! I remember having read somewhere the trail to the Monastry from the backend is less climbing than from the main road. I can assure you that that is complete nonsense. The trail from the backend is much longer, has a lot of stairs and has amazing views. The trail from the main entrance is a lot of climbing too, but is straight forward through the rocks.
We arrive at the Monastry. An amazing building high in the mountains. We have our picnic lunch in front of it, surrounded by many cats and dogs. The wind is strong and it actually looks likes it is going to rain. We continue our hike, back to the centre of Petra. We pass all the small closed Bedouin shops along the stairs. It must be extremely crowded here normally.
Today there are more visitors than yesterday. Mainly locals, probably because it’s Friday. A veiled lady wants a selfie with Marijke and we selfie back. No clue why they want selfies with us, but it’s fun to get pictures with them. Same with a military guy that offered to make a photo for us at the Royal Tombes.
We wanted to finish with the Al-Khubta trail. But it was closed with a gate. A herd of goats garding it. Probably to late to start the trail. Instead we climb closer to the Royal Tombs and enter the Urn Tomb.
Our feet start hurting and Petra is nearly closing so we start the 2-3 km walk to the main entrance. Today we walked more than 15 km including many many stairs. It was again absolutely amazing. We celebrate goodbye with a glass wine at Mövenpick hotel once more. Then we drive the car back to our hotel, take a shower and we are too tired to get out of the room this evening… tomorrow Wadi Rum…
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2 окт 2024
