Petra In a Day...

While the Pyramids are one of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World, Petra is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. We had heard from quite a few people that Petra was worth a visit, so we decided to make a day trip. Little did we know that a "day trip" to Petra from Sharm El Sheik would be such an adventure. In order to reach Petra, we had to leave our hotel at 3:00am, then take a 4-hour bus ride to the Egyptian port of Nuweiba, then take a 2-hour boat ride to the Jordanian port of Aqaba, and then take a 2-hour bus ride to Petra. After spending a few hours exploring Petra, we then had to make the same trip in reverse. Needless to say, it was an extremely long day and we were sick of riding on buses.

In this picture, we are standing on a cliff high above the Jordan desert. Petra is located outside of a town called Wadi Musa (Valley of Moses). As we drove to this town, our guide pointed out a shrine in the distance on top of a mountain called Jebel Haroun, or the biblical Mount Hor. This shrine holds the tomb of Aaron, Moses' brother.

In Arabic, Petra means, "cleft in the rock." As you can see, this description is pretty accurate. From the visitor's center, we had to walk about two miles through this canyon to the actually site of Petra.

Maria sees something in the distance.

We made it!

Petra may be most famous to Americans as the temple that held the Holy Grail in the Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade movie. As we mentioned in a previous post, they also filmed Transformers 2 here and in Egypt.

They were actually filming another movie when we were there, but it looked like the movie was a local version of High School Musical. As part of the movie cast, there were camels. Since it was hot, the camels were very thirsty.

Make sure you click on the picture below to enlarge it because like we said, the camels were very thirsty!

This pictures really depicts why Petra is so amazing. The structures were carved directly into the rock. Keep in mind that this carving took place around 100 BC!

As you would expect of any tourist site, there were plenty of locals ready to sell us some cheap Petra trinkets. Since the site is so isolated, we think the people live in these caves. Note the clothes hanging out to dry.

We climbed to the Urn Tomb, which stood high above the valley floor.

The view from the top.

If you look in the distance between the columns, you can see some more structures carved into the cliffs. Remember, you can click on the picture to enlarge it!

After spending a few hours in Petra, we had to make our long journey back. This picture was taken on the boat ride back across the Red Sea and it really shows why it's called the Red Sea. The land you see is actually Saudi Arabia. When we were on the boat, we could see FOUR countries: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabi, and Isreal... pretty cool.

Sunset over the Red Sea.

By the time we finished our last bus ride, it was past midnight, which meant our day trip to Petra had taken about 21 hours. We were so happy to crawl into bed, but were also glad that we had been able to see such an interesting place. This concludes our Egyptian/Jordanian adventures. We definitely want to thank Mike and Kimberly for allowing us to join them on their trip.

They did most of the planning and we probably would not have gone to this interesting part of the world if it was not for them. We had a fantastic time exploring amazing historical sites and awe-inspiring natural beauty and it was a nice change of pace from our European travels. Plus, it was great to spend some time with friends from back home!
So, if you plan a trip and invite us along, you too can make the blog. Or, just come visit us and you'll still make the blog. We're not too picky, we miss all of you!