After an easy ride from Feynan, provided by my hotel, I landed in the town of Wadi Musa, a town that apparently was largely built up only due to it’s proximity to Petra. Lots of hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops, tour buses, selfie sticks, you get the idea. My head was still pounding from my hikes in Dana and Feynan so I pretty much went straight to bed and slept all day and through the night after taking some “Jordanian herbs” given to me by, Mosleh, the hotel owner. What could go wrong? Actually, nothing because I woke up the next morning feeling great again and ready for action. I still wanted to take it easy the first day so I started with a visit to Little Petra, a much smaller site about 6 miles up the road and then taking in the expansive Petra museum to learn as much as I could before tackling the real deal. Warning, this is going to be a long post, enjoy your journey.

The museum was pretty fantastic. It told all about the history of the site, Nabataean culture and history, and had lots of artifacts found in and around Petra. They were an interesting collage of their own religion and customs, mixed with Greek, Egyptian, and later, Roman. They were also masters of water manipulation and conservation. They built their own aqueducts and dams to protect from flash floods, used spring water for drinking, harnessed and stored rain water for agriculture and things like bathing. They even had flush toilets. They used the dirty bath water to flush it away. Not bad for a 2000+ year old culture.

I really wanted to do Petra right, so I gave myself a full three days to explore. Most people only seem to do a day or two and there are hundreds of day trippers from Amman every day, but I think they miss an awful lot. Petra is entered and exited via the Siq, which is a really impressive narrow canyon with red sandstone cliffs rising up on either side seemingly forever and it’s worth seeing for it’s own merits. It’s also about a mile long walk at the beginning and end of every day you visit.

The first major site you see entering Petra is the super famous and iconic Treasury. Let me tell you, there IS a reason it’s one of the most photographed things on earth. It’s awe inspiring!

The only part of Petra most people know about is the Treasury, but once you get past it the real fun begins. Petra has so many unbelievable sites to see spread out over such a large area that it can be really overwhelming, hence my three day allowance. Luckily, there are plenty of little snack shacks around to buy refreshments and even a couple of restaurants. My first day I avoided the main area and headed up for a hike to the Place of High Sacrifice where the Nabataeans practiced animal sacrifices and religious ceremonies. Also nearby are two obelisks dedicated to their two top deities.

After the summit I took the long way around through Wadi Farasah, a mile or two. Along the way I stopped at a lion carving which served as a fountain, the Garden Temple, a Roman Soldiers tomb, and a Triclinium (so called because of the bench seating on three walls inside).

Most of what you see in Petra are tombs. Archaeologists originally thought this was just the worlds biggest necropolis, but while the Nabataeans were carving out these amazing tombs, they primarily lived in tents. In any case, the city must have been quite a spectacle in its prime. Also, in addition to the tombs and thanks to thousands of years of wind and water treatments, the rocks form all sorts of crazy shapes and the colors are kaleidoscopic. From a distance you don’t notice as much, but up close you start wondering who slipped you the magic mushrooms. (The one on the bottom left looks like a pair of eyes)

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Next it was a climb up Al Habis, a smaller mountain with a ruined Christian fort at the top and astounding views.

And on the way down from Al Habis while taking more pictures of psychedelic rocks… Look out!… CAMEL PHOTOBOMB!!!

Day two I stuck to the most elaborate and intricately carved tombs in Petra, dubbed the Royal Tombs. The colors on the rocks, especially inside some of the tombs is just mind blowing. Black, grey, red, brown, white, and occasional veins of yellow swirling around in beautiful patterns everywhere.

After the tombs I took a long detour up to an overlook of the Treasury, but honestly, I wasn’t super impressed with the view of the Treasury. The view from the lesser summit on the way up however was fantastic!

After coming back down I continued on to the Sextius Florentinus Tomb. Sextius Florentinus was a Roman governor of Arabia in the 2nd century and his tomb sports some remaining Latin inscriptions, and a partial eagle carving at the top (if you use a bit of imagination).

After the Royal Tombs it was a quick walk over to a collection of Byzantine era churches recently excavated. They all seem a bit out of place here, but they’re still worth some exploration. The Petra Church revealed some astonishing mosaics and the Blue Chapel seems especially out of place with its four Egyptian blue granite columns, though it’s very striking.

I forgot to mention the Nabataeans also had a theatre. It looks a lot like a Roman theatre, but it far predates the Romans and was carved right out of solid rock, like everything else here in Petra. Between the carvings and the genius innovations with regards to water, these people were a really impressive culture!

My final day in amazing Petra I hiked straight to the furthest lying tomb there is, from the entrance anyway, the Monastery. The hike heads up into the western hills and the trail is unavoidably lined with souvenir stands all the way up.

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Eventually you come out onto a wide flat plateau and The Monastery just appears from nowhere. It’s a tomb like the rest, but it’s called the Monastery because there are crosses carved on the walls inside. It’s thought that the Byzantines later used it as a church. It’s also the largest tomb in Petra.

They actually have a sort of restaurant at the site, so I enjoyed a rest and then climbed up to a viewpoint for a more birds eye view.

On the way down a very tiny side canyon leads you to a really cool, secluded tomb called the Lion Triclinium. It has some pretty well preserved lion carvings at the entrance. Everybody just passes it by on the way to the Monastery without even a glance. What a shame.

I topped off my final day checking out the center of Petra and some of the only free standing structures here. There are two large temples, though one of them is called a castle, Qasr al Bint and The Great Temple. Both are placed along side the later built Roman road and what’s left of the Hadrian Gate. You know your culture is truly ancient if the Romans constituted your late period.

Petra has definitely been one of the highlights of all my travels around the globe. This place is fantastic! I can’t even begin to count how many miles I’ve walked the last few days, but it’s a lot. If you made it all the way through this marathon post, congratulations, you’re probably as tired as I am. Haha Luckily, tomorrow will be a short travel day and lots of rest before the next round. That’s right, I have one more stop to make here in Jordan. See you again in a few days.

The plethora of Petra pics that I took can be found here… no, here