PETRA NEW YEAR 1994 - day 3
text by Pink Oboe, pictures from Angus McIntyre's Petra Site. Includes dozens of beautiful images and a clickable map of the city.
preamble - day 1 - day 2 - day 3
Day three and in spite of cloud indications that the weather was changing, the morning again dawned bright and clear. The group, now no longer anonymous faces but friends, gathered outside the Petra Palace bright and early. Bassem offered various options for the day i.e. horse down, horse back; horse down, walk back; walk down, walk back. We plumped initially for horse down and a walk back by a different way but then discovered that the horses were paid for and that the tip need be paid only at the end of the day. Our enthusiastic buying of myrrh and other novelties had left us counting down our available money.
Back to the horse lines, and on to a frisky grey with a young handler. As we drew away from the mounting blocks we had our photographs taken. Lawrence of Arabia eat your heart out! On down the Wadi to the entrance to the Siq. I was beginning to feel reasonably comfortable in the saddle - or at least felt that I was not going to fall off. Every now and then the horse would break into a canter and I would be pounded to death by the water bottle that I carried in the back pack.
We paused once more at the Treasury and waited for Bassem to come through the narrow entrance to the Siq to confirm where we were to leave the horses. As we thought, we needed to go down the Outer Siq to an area just before the Roman Theatre. We dismounted, arranged to see our handlers at four o'clock and sat on the rocks until the rest of the group had gathered.
Above us disappeared steeply upwards a set of rock hewn steps. Bassem took the lead and I followed. Every now and then I was acutely aware that my recent 'flu made me feel as though I had half a lung missing. The route we were taking was to the High Place of Sacrifice. The steps and occasional flat connecting parts of the narrow path rose up a narrow gorge, sometimes taking one side and sometimes the other. Parts of the path zig-zagged back upon itself like an alpine road.
We paused halfway up to admire the view down to the café owned by the New Zealand lady and to allow the slower punters to catch up. On and on until we reached a Col beneath the High Place. We again waited for the stragglers to arrive and admired the views down the other side to the distant prospect of Aaron's Tomb, a little white speck on the top of a distant mountain. Looking down there was a cistern cut in the rock and looking even more steeply down a top view of the Roman Soldier Tomb we would visit later.
Strength regained, it was time for the top. Above us a wall crumbled away to piles of stones. This had originally protected the holy place. Parts of the rock around showed where the stones had been cut. Two obelisks remained as central cores to indicate how much rock had gone.
We skirted the edge of
the High Place to look almost vertically down to our starting place. A herd of goats started trickling
out of a narrow defile until the whole area was alive with long eared Nubians with just the odd couple
of sheep. We skirted further around until we reached a magnificent back-drop of the whole of Petra. We
took pictures and got someone to take a picture of the both of us - in Arab head-dress of course.
Finally back towards the Col but this time climbing higher until we were on the High Place of Sacrifice itself. An oblong had been cut out of the rocks with a raised central sacrificial block no more than six inches high. Two Arab gentlemen busied themselves with tea. Aromatic wood smoke drifted over the site.
Bassem chose the young Scottish Fraser lass as his sacrificial victim and borrowed a dagger to stage a pantomime sacrifice. In fact humans were not the victims, it was more likely to be the odd goat but often it was merely some expensive incense that was burnt. We sipped our sage tea and admired the views in all directions.
Tea and sacrifices over, we headed down a steep slope to the lean-to café at the bottom before Bassem led us off to go down another way. The track wound both up and down, the more remarkable in that this was the route taken by the pall bearers carrying the bodies up for the final rites. At one point we descended under an overhang like an eagle's bill, all multi- coloured with banded sandstone.
We paused by the Lion fountain where a conduit fed the fountain, which came out of the Lion's mouth as a constant stream. Down other steps to an area called the Garden where water fed a cultivated area. Tombs and triclinia were on both sides. At last we came out of the rocks to find a gaggle of camel drivers awaiting customers who wished to ride back rather than walk the mile or so to the restaurant. They were sadly disappointed.
The track wound over low hills of rock, sand and a million shards of pottery. Rain had washed large pieces clear of the residue and they were there for the taking. Bassem explained that the finest thin pottery was Nabatean, the thicker was Byzantine. Rosemary found one piece with a light glaze on the outside. Bassem said that this was Edomite and preceded the formation of Petra proper, dating back to about 3,000BC .
The
track looped around a hill to the Zibb al Pharoen, which roughly translates as Pharaoh's Willy. A
solitary column stood with its dismembered companion, if that is the right word, by its side. Now it
was just a short down hill walk to the back of the Kasr El Bint, again a reference to the Black prophet
as it referred to the legend that Pharaoh, slowed down in his relentless pursuit of the Israelites by
his daughter, paused to build her a house! Desert flowers like crocuses grew among the stones.
Lunch on pitta bread sandwiches filled with sausage and cheese. Small cucumbers provided the garnish. The last leg took us up to the Temple of the Winged Lions recently excavated by the Mormons, of all people. An olive press sat in a courtyard with a seat nearby showing the deep imprints of the overseer's boots.
Downhill we went again and up dale across the ruins of the once great city. Bassem described how some of the houses contained bones, some of the skeletons with arms thrown up to stop the heavy stones raining down on them. Most of the city was destroyed in an earthquake in 331 AD although earthquakes occurred approximately every 70 years: too close to the Great Rift Valley for comfort.
The last excursion was to the Royal tombs, the Urn, the Silk and the Corinthian. Bassem showed us where our own Queen had walked over a plank bridge to gain access to the Urn tomb. King Hussein then tipped his officials the wink that they had better make a somewhat stronger job of it in case she came back. Hence there is a Queen Elizabeth's Bridge in Petra!
As we inspected the last of the tombs it started to rain. Bassem told the walkers that he would not take them back by the alternative way as it would be too dangerous. We decided that it was time to leave before we got soaked. Rosemary's handler was there early but mine was taking his time. We waited under a shelter watching the clouds getting blacker and blacker. Eventually my lad turned up and we set off at the trot. We made it as far as the Siq before the heavens opened. We were absolutely drenched! My handler kept hitting the poor Grey until she was nearly galloping with me hanging on like grim death. I survived with multiple lacerations to my back from the nuts which held Rosemary's seat together digging into me.
We tried to see the Brooke before going home but it was shut. We sludged home getting extremely muddy. At the shops we decided to use up our remaining Jordanian currency on some gifts for the boys. The shop keepers bemoaned the fact that their rents were so high and the number of tourists so low. It is the same the world over.
The journey to the airport was exciting. The rain kept coming down with such force that the road to Amman was washed away. We eventually made it by a devious route, which took three and a half hours. The idea of going to Amman was that we would not travel south to travel north. The storm had caused the aircraft from Heathrow to divert so instead of going to Heathrow, we went to Aqaba! It added a couple more hours to the journey but what the hell. Petra had been worth it.
