Petra-fied

Eilat, March 29, 2001.

Hi-ho frogs,

Well, lots of bits and pieces before I get on to the main meat of the
last week -- exploration of a city even *older* than Jerash.

Firstly, I'm back in Israel, in Eilat, in the very south. Despite what
you may or may not be hearing on the news, tanks are not rolling down
the streets, wild-eyed Arabs with Semtex underwear are not keeping the
Jewish populace barricaded in their homes and the sky is not going to
fall down. Physically there is 400km of desert between me and where the,
er, "incidents" happened, and metaphorically I have more chance of being
bombed if I was in Cairns. So at the moment I'm completely safe and I
will be considering my next move inside Israel very carefully. Put it
this way: I could be back in England eating beef on a train.

The press reports are interesting reading after having recently consumed
"Manufacturing Consent" by Chomsky. The Israeli victims are humanised --
their names, ages and occupations are given and the scenes of bits and
pieces of people everywhere are described in detail. By contrast, when
the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) sends in attack helicopters and razes
Palestinian targets with rockets, "... one Force 17 officer and a woman
from Beituniya were killed in Ramallah, and scores, mainly Force 17
members, were wounded in the Gaza strikes". Did those "scores" include
school children with names too? If you only read the Jerusalem Post,
you'll never know.

The second piece of news to note is that the Inaugural Robert Atkins
Round World Odyssey turns one year old today! Yes, it was a whole year
ago that I stepped through Australian passport control, waving a hanky
at tearful parents and six hours later a whole year ago that I first
planted a foot in the airport in Singappore and thought "Shit! I'm in
another country!". So far it's been a hell of a lot of fun, and I
wouldn't have missed seeing the world, for, well, the world. But there's
a whole lot of it left, so from where I sit right now it looks to me
like I won't be home for another 12 months. Egypt's pyramids, Greece's
isles, Italy's monuments, Belgium's beers, Scandanavia's blondes still
beckon. And I've got another two year itinerary brewing in the back of
my mind too (I haven't touched South America or Africa yet, and there's
still heaps of Asia to see...). Let's just hope the money lasts...

But swiftly reversing from the far future back to the near past and
Petra last week. I got out of Amman as soon as I possibly could as the
hotel was really a bit crappy (squat toilets I can cope with if they're
clean and they flush properly but otherwise...). I took a minibus down
to Petra, which took about an hour and a half longer than I thought it
should; there had been some severe weather (huge thunderstorms in Amman
and sandstorms on the Desert Highway) which meant we had to take the
long way via the Dead Sea. I suppose I should count myself lucky; the
angry looking Japanese guy who got on last had tried to go via the
Desert Highway but the police turned them back -- he'd been on the road
since 6:00am and gotten nowhere. The cigrarette smoke managed to
completely strip the lining out of my nose and throat over the course of
the 4.5 hour ride, which I'm only just getting over, but them's the
breaks.

The bus dropped us off in Wadi Musa (closest town to the Petra ruins) to
the typical scrum of eager hotel owners, but I had a reccomendation from
the Faisal in Jerusalem which fortunately turned out to be a winner.
Check the Valentine Inn out if you're ever in the area. Clean. Hot
water. "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" on video. Everything you
need.

I was sharing a room with a German motorcyclist named Bernd who gave me
a lift down to the site on the back of his bike; this was fortunate as I
didn't get up until well after the freebie bus had left. He was a keen
photographer too, so that first day we walked around the place together
chatting and snapping. His English was very good, if unpractised, and I
make a policy of never laughing at anyone's English unless I can speak
their native language (ie, I don't laugh at anyone's English). But I
couldn't help myself when later that night he described Petra on the
whole as being "very picturescue" :-).

When you get to the site you pay your 25JD (at today's rate AU$71.45)
for a two-day ticket (two days? You're kidding me, right? Nobody could
spend two days at a tourist attraction in the middle of the Jordanian
desert, could they? Oh yes they bloodywell could!) and walk through the
gates, past the "donkey terminal" to the entrance to "the Siq". A siq is
like a canyon but whereas a canyon is carved out by water, a siq is
formed when tectonics simply split a rock apart. So you start walking
down the siq. And keep walking. And keep walking. The scenery is already
stunning and there is the odd obelisk or niche carved out in the rocks
and you can see the channels and pipes the Nabataeans used to route
water around (Bernd is a plumber by trade and was impressed :-). And you
keep walking. This siq, forming the entrance hall to the ancient city of
Petra, is over 1.2km long! And then, just as you're getting siq of it
(*ow*, Hey! it wasn't that bad!)...

You see the treasury. You've all seen the Treasury too, it's the temple
carved out of a solid stone cliff that you see near the end of Indianna
Jones and the Last Crusade. Awesome. Spectacular. Huge. Old! And that is
just one of literally hundreds of buildings, tombs, houses and monuments
carved out of solid red rock by an ancient race of Arabs, the
Nabataeans, about 2500 years ago. After the Nabataeans, the Romans came
through, conquered and carved out a couple more tombs and cathedrals and
the whole shebang was a going concern until about 500 AD. The city lies
on a pretty important trade route and that explains its prosperity and
grandeur.

But enough of the history lesson... it was just spectacular. And HUGE!
The second day, we went in through a different entrance (a big 80m
tunnel carved out by the Nabataeans to divert flood water which would
otherwise flow down the siq) and came down near the back of the site and
just everywhere you looked there were holes carved in the rock. They
haven't nearly finished excavating it all either. Interestingly enough
some Bedouin families still live there in the caves and as well as
herding their goats sell trinkets and out-of-date Kodak film to the
tourists.

Highlights were the "Cathedral", which was probably originally a tomb
but converted by the Romans and used as such. It is a huge room with 10m
sheer walls of coloured red stone. When we were in there, there was also
a group of French pilgrims (?) who all of a sudden started singing a
hymn. The accoustics were wonderful. There is a solid-stone ampitheatre
which is quite eroded (cut directly out of a sandstone mountain rather
than built with marble). There are also the ruins of another church
whose floor is covered in mosaic tiles. They're really beatiful and I
got lots of photos I haven't had developed yet.

The Monastery, a good half hour walk/climb on the far side of the site,
is the biggest monument, something like 50m tall. Again, the facade
carved out of solid rock. I saw this late the second afternoon and then
had to run over to the other side to get up to the "High Place of
Sacrifice" before the gates closed at six. I hired a camel to get me
across to where the ascent started (hilarious animals, camels) and just
managed it up the 400-odd steps by 6:00pm (it was quite a rough climb).
From the top I let out a "coo-eee" to try the echoes, and I was
surprised to get one back! So this to-and-fro'd for a while, and then I
hear "Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!". It was Bevan (the intrepid cyclist from
Adelaide) and James who I'd met at the hotel and been exploring the site
with earlier that day (we'd split up to see different things at the end
of the day). They were at the peak too, just out of my sight. So we all
walked down the other side of the mountain in the dark. Been doing a lot
of that recently.

The next day I had to get up stupidly early to catch the bus down to
Wadi Rum, Lawrence of Arabia territory (I must read the book soon). Not
so much smoke this time, fortunately. When I got to the town of Rum, I
met a French couple and a Japanese guy so we all banded together to
share the cost of a jeep safari for the day and a night in a Bedouin
tent. The "jeep" turned out to be a Land Cruiser ute with a couple of
bench seats welded to the tray, much to the French couple's surprise.
"What were you expecting?" asked Ali, our gide and driver :-).

So off we set into the desert. Again, the scenery was spectacular. The
first place we stopped was a huge red sand dune which we climbed. And
being the intelligent, mature adult that I am, I had to roll down it
:-). I got sand in absolutely everything but it had to be done. Next we
saw "Lawrence's house" of which not much was left, but apparently it's
where TE Lawrence hung out. More driving around the desert through more
spectacular scenery (vast plains of sand peppered with huge sheer-sided
"Jebels" or mountains, of rock) led us to "the Bridge"; a natural rock
bridge over a gorge in one of the jebels. We'd been given the option
earlier, but now the consensus was to take it: we had to climb to the
bridge.

So Ali shucks off his sandals and is up there like a rat up a drainpipe
and we charge after him. It was quite hard going in places, I'm proud of
myself for making it (and then getting back down in one piece). At many
points Ali would climb up first and then offer us a hand. The first time
he did this he almost pulled my arm out of my socket! "You're strong!",
I said. "Drink camel's milk!", he beamed back, thumping at his chest.
When we finally got up to the top (all of us puffing and panting, Ali
having not broken a sweat) it was incredibly windy, precarious and a
long way down. Nonetheless we ventured out onto the middle of the bridge
for Ali to take photos (ouch, must explain the camera more carefully to
my next Bedouin gide -- you don't need to force the focusing ring
against the motor when it's in autofocus mode).

We went a different way down which was equally precarious and had us
scrambling down cracks between the rocks like upturned crabs.
Exhilarating. Got to try abseiling next, I think. Mum, can you look up
my insurance policy to see if it covers abseiling?

We drove around a bit more, had some lunch, then charged off again to
the shadow of one of Ali's favourite jebels where he built a fire and
put on a pot of "Bedouin Whiskey" (otherwise known as tea). This being
done, he told us he'd be back in a second. Yeah yeah, that's fine. We
didn't realise he was taking off in the Landcruiser until he'd started
the engine. Oh well, this is the point where the Bedouin gide disappears
into the desert, leaves the tourists for dead, flogs their posessions
and retires a rich man. But no, in about fifteen minutes he was back.

He'd gone to see his girlfriend! This was truly hilarious... she had
scribbled in charcoal on the rock that her parents were away so it was
ok for him to come and visit! Ah, young love finds the same obstacles
wherever it flourishes, eh? :-).

The rest of the afternoon was spent hooning around the dunes, watching
the scenery go past, stopping at various places and more tea-drinking.
We watched the sun set and then drove into the Bedouin camp that would
be our sleeping place for the night.

On sitting down we were all offered a small amount of "coffee" from a
silver pot on the fire. Whatever it was, it sure wasn't coffee. Some
sort of cardamon- based drink, and it was only when I tried to stand up
10 minutes later that I realised just how much it made my head spin.
There was a good reason it came in thimble-sized cups. After that some
tea, tea and more tea. Well, actually it was more like sugar with tea
rather than tea with sugar. Which explains why each of us visitors had
more teeth than all the occupants of the tent put together.

And what do you do in the middle of the desert when you haven't even got
a radio? You make your own music, that's what. A crinkly old woman
popped through into our end of the tent (there are seperate mens and
womens sections, apparently) and started strangling an innocent violin-
like instrument. Fortunately she was joking and handed it over to one of
the blokes who could actually play. The woman later on got out a flute-
like arrangement (looked like a bit of metal pipe with some holes
drilled in it to me) and blasted out a tune on that so it wasn't all
lost.

I think dinner arrived next; and when I say arrived, I mean literally.
Ali came from town with a big pot of rice and chicken in the Land
Cruiser... a bit sus, but maybe just as well. Western stomachs may not
stand up to honest, hearty Bedouin cooking. Or at least Bedouin
standards of washing up. After that I just went outside and lay on my
back and watched the stars shooting and listened to the dogs howling.
There are just so many more stars out there than you realise.

Bedtime was fairly early, but that fits as we were up with the sun as
well, in time to get down to Aquaba (via a shifty taxi driver who only
just left me with enough money for the Jordanian exit tax) by about
8:00am. And back to civilisation and a shower in Eilat. Sorely needed,
as you can imagine. So there you are. I've watched shooting starts from
the middle of the Arabian desert and slept in a goat-hair tent. How's
work treating everyone?

Cheers, Robert.