Overland to London - Jerusalem via Petra to Aqaba

 

'Djinn Blocks' at entrance to the Siq, Petra

Day 67    Thu 31 July          JERUSALEM – PETRA

Departure time: 6.30 am

We will leave Knight’s Palace Hotel at 6.30 for the drive to the Allenby Bridge. Hopefully delays won’t be long. Tom will meet us at Jordanian Customs, then we will drive to Amman to change money before pressing on to Petra, the rock-hewn city of the Nabateans and once an important stop on the caravan routes between Egypt and the East until the establishment of Palmyra and Jerash by the Romans. Nowadays, the descendants of the Nabateans, Bedouin tribesmen who claim descent from Ishmael, son of Abraham, inhabit Petra, still live in the ancient caves, or in tents, depending on the season.

The Siq is the main entrance to Petra & after a 5 kms walk,
El Khazneh (the Treasury) appears

         The entrance to Petra from Wadi Musa is by way of a narrow gorge, 5kms long, known as the Siq. As one comes to the end of the Siq, between two cliffs over 100ft high, the famous Treasury (El-Kazneh) appears, hewn out of the red sandstone cliff. Once past the Treasury the Valley opens out with caves – mostly old tombs – monuments, a theatre all cut from the red sandstone of the valley, making this area one of the wonders of the modern world. Further away, in the hills at the far end of the Valley is El Deir, the Monastery, which is accessed by a stiff climb. Many of the buildings in the Valley are of great interest and access is free to most of them.

   

The Street of Tombs, Petra

The rock-cut Roman theatre in Petra

Coloured striated sandstone interior of a tomb, Petra

Tom has bought food for tonight and each of you will carry in what you need. We are able to spend the night in the Valley, so every person will also carry in their sleeping bags. Horses or donkeys can be hired to go in and out. I will have to check on costs when we arrive there. There is a Rest House at the beginning of the Siq and we will be leaving the coach there.

 Day 68    Fri 1 August          PETRA – WADI RUM – AQABA

 

         It seems no work of man’s creative hand,

          By labour wrought as wavering fancy planned;

          But from the rock as if by magic grown,

          Eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!

          Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine

          Where erst Athena held her rites divine;

          Not saintly-grey like many a minster fane

          That crowns the hill and consecrates the plain;

          But rosy-red as if the blush of dawn

          That first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;

          The hues of youth upon a brew of woe

          Which man deemed old two thousand years ago

          Match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,

          A rose-red city half as old as Time.

                                                  Dean Burgon

     The ruins of Petra were re-discovered by the Swiss traveller Johann Burckhardt in 1814. He had heard rumours of ancient ruins in a valley near the tomb of Aaron, Moses' brother. During his travels in Arabia, Burckhardt dressed as an Arab used the name of Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Abdallah. Expressing a desire to sacrifice a goat at the Tomb of Aaron, he persuaded a guide to take him through the valley to the tomb. He describes to first site of the 'Treasury': "An excavated mausoleum came in view, the situation and beauty of which are calculated to make an extraordinary impression upon the traveller, after having traversed for nearly half an hour such a gloomy and almost subterraneous passage as I have described. The natives call this monument Kaszr Faraoun, or Pharaoh's castle; and pretend that it was the residence of a prince. But it was rather the sepulchre of a prince, and great must have been the opulence of a city, which could dedicate such monuments to the memory of its rulers ..." Johann Burckhardt  - Travels in Syria and the Holy Land. 

Overview of Petra

    Time this morning to further explore this fantastic city before we make our way back up the Siq to our coach, just as the day’s tourists are beginning to arrive. We will head off towards Aqaba on the Red Sea by way of spectacular Wadi Rum, famous for its associations with Lawrence of Arabia during World War One. It was here that some of the desert scenes of the David Lean movie Lawrence of Arabia were filmed. We will stop by the small Desert Fort, now occupied by members of the Bedouin Desert Police Force and have time to explore a little in the vicinity – spectacular rock formations, Nabatean ruins, a Bedouin encampment. 

The Desert Police Fort at Wadi Rum

     Bedouin policeman, Wdi Rum      

        The drive to Aqaba is through Wadi Yutum to Jordan’s only port on the Red Sea. Aqaba is situated at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba (part of the Great Rift Valley which extends from the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon to Mozambique in southern Africa) and opposite the Israeli port of Eilat – just a few hundred yards away, but to reach Eilat from here one must cross the Jordanian-Israeli border at the Allenby Bridge. 

    Aqaba has been an important port since the days of the Phoenicians. It was the southernmost town of the Biblical Kingdom of Edom and was occupied ny the Romans and Crusaders. During the Ottoman Empire, it drifted into the backwaters of history until captured by the Arabs, under Lawrence of Arabia, in World War One. Between 1958-60 a new port was constructed here. One of the casus belli of the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict was the blockade, by Egypt, of the Straits of Tiran, the southern entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, to deny shipping access to the Israeli port of Eilat. Now Aqaba (1980), besides being a port town, is also a resort area famous for its Red Sea coral gardens

Bougainvillea on the beach at Aqaba

COMMENTS:    Thanks to Tom & Rolf (& locals) for handling our breakdown predicament (at Qatrana) so calmly & efficiently.

text & photographs ©Neil Rawlins 

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My paperbacks and ebooks on my Overland travels in Asia, Europe & Africa in the early 1970s and the experiences of a tour guide on the Asian Overland routes & leading Camel Safaris in Rajasthan in the 1980s are available from Amazon.