The next day we finally had a hike around Petra planned, so we were able to take a break from the bikes. In the morning, a free shuttle took us from the hotel to the entrance of Petra (about two and a half kilometers away). It turned out to be just a beaten-up pickup truck, but the driver was dressed in what looked like a suit and tie, if memory serves, which is completely uncharacteristic for these parts.
I won't go into detail about the history of Petra, I'll just say, so you have an idea, that it's an ancient city in the rocks, the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom. You can only enter the city through gorges from the north and south, and overall the city is naturally protected from the outside world by sheer cliffs.
They ask you to keep your weight in mind when climbing onto the poor animal
A ticket to Petra costs an exorbitant amount of money even by European standards — namely, 50 dinars if you're in Jordan for a few days, and 90!!! if you're just visiting for one day from another country. Mind you, it seems like nobody actually checks this; at least, they didn't ask us or demand a stamped passport. This is probably the most expensive national park out of all the ones we've been to. Rybakov jokes that it is Jordan's main source of income.
Since we came all the way to Jordan and will hardly ever be here again, we had to admire Petra, even for this outrageous sum. While the driver was taking us, he tried to explain that there was currently unrest and rioting in the town of Wadi Musa because, due to some fraudulent scheme involving loans or fake property deals, many of its residents were tens or even hundreds of thousands of dinars in debt. We never quite understood what the scheme was, but we did get that the residents had written a petition to the King asking him to sort it out.
As you might remember, in many eateries and even in people's homes hang portraits of the King, who, in the eyes of many here, is surely THE GREAT AND MIGHTY CLIFF, THE SHINING BATTLE, WITH ONE FOOT IN THE SKY AND ONE FOOT ON THE EARTH, LIVING UNTIL THE MACHINES DISAPPEAR.
The area of Petra is massive — 264 square kilometers. It's unrealistic to walk the whole thing in a day.
But back to Petra. Our hike started with buying a ticket. The driver told us there was a chance there'd be no guards at all and we'd just walk in for free — no such luck. I paid by card, which is quite a rarity around here. We were constantly short on cash because, for some reason, we always exchanged too little. Same thing here — we exchanged just exactly enough again — barely enough to pay the Bedouins for our overnight stay in the desert the next day. Why we acted so weirdly, I still can't understand. Apparently, it was because at the start of the trip we couldn't figure out if we were getting a good exchange rate, and totally dropped the ball on asking Mr. Ragai for more currency.
Right at the entrance, it became clear that there were hardly any tourists in Petra right now — just a handful. Because of the crisis in Syria, the tourist flow to Jordan more than halved between 2010 and 2015. 10 out of 38 hotels in Petra have closed down, and the government is paying half the electricity bills for the rest so they don't turn off the lights, otherwise the towns start looking gloomy. At the same time, not a single foreign affairs department in developed countries considers Jordan unsafe, with the exception of the border region. However, bad PR is just that bad, and tourists are terrified of the planet's main bogeyman — ISIS, forgetting that the chances of dying from a heart attack, cancer, or a car crash are hundreds, maybe even thousands of times higher.
We, fortunately, are not like that, so we enjoyed the absence of crowds and lines, as well as a wonderful sense of friendliness and safety. The downside is that the remaining souvenir sellers, beggars, and other hustlers pester you three times as hard, especially in Petra, where tourists are the main source of income.
To get to the interesting part, you first have to walk a kilometer or two from the entrance
Right by the entrance, donkey and horse owners accost you, insisting that their services are included in the ticket price. Naturally, after the ride, they will demand a "tip." You can understand the guys — there are a couple dozen of them, and the tourists, who usually number over ten thousand a day in Petra, barely scratch a thousand a day during these lean times. I later asked some British girls how much dough they gave as a tip for a ten-minute horse ride? 4 dinars. I wasn't ready for such a sacrifice, even though it costs about the same back home.
This is one of the so-called "Djinn Blocks," as they were dubbed by superstitious Bedouins, who couldn't comprehend how a multitude of such monoliths could be built
In reality, like many other artifacts in Petra, this is a ritual structure, most likely a tomb, and you could find remains under the stone if you dig around.
At the entrance to the Siq gorge, they hung an "ancient" calendar of a pleasant round shape, exactly the perfect breast size for me
This is how cool the Siq looks
Thanks to the help of the Swiss and the French, the gorge was cleaned up and concreted, making it much easier to reach the inner part of Petra.
Not very authentic, but convenient.
For those who are too lazy, there's plenty of transport
After three kilometers of wandering through the gorge, we reached the inner part of Petra. They say we arrived at exactly the right time to behold Al-Khazneh in all its glory, around 10-12 in the morning.
Al-Khazneh is actually not a treasury at all, as one might think, but a tomb. It was dubbed the Treasury by the Bedouins, who believed that the king who built this marvel hid the moolah in plain sight, and that if you shoot at the rock with various calibers of weapons, the treasure will drop out like coins from defeated enemies in Super Mario. Over a couple of centuries of shooting, however, this theory has failed to be confirmed.
We decided not to look for easy paths and headed up the rocky trekking route to the top
The foolish penguin donkey timidly hides its fat body in the cliffs bushes
Rock-climbing goats
All along the path, merchant stalls are scattered here and there
It's funny that they often sell rocks — despite the fact that you can pick up the exact same ones all around you. Obviously, it's for those who are too lazy to bend over.
Rybakov was dissatisfied: in his opinion, Petra wasn't living up to its reputation and cost. Fortunately, we reached a spot where the rock texture looked amazing, and his half-joking grumbling subsided.
These textures are one of those things that we saw for the first time in our lives in Jordan, and which truly impressed us.
The cat was screaming for grub, but we didn't have anything meaty
A practical stool
Rock-climbing donkeys
During our hike along the trail, we ran into a souvenir lady who gestured to us, drawing a line across her neck, that sacrifices used to be performed here, possibly even human ones. As for how our interaction ended, you'll find out in the next part.