Petra (Part 1)
When it was listed as one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, I did a bit of research on Petra to learn more about it. This was just before my first year at Queen’s, where my first class in Classical Archaeology with Dr. Reeves introduced us to it again, in the form of a guest lecture given by an excavator at the site itself. With its Classical and architectural relevance in mind, we travelled to Petra on Thursday evening.
We left after lunch from the Dig House in Aqaba, taking our usual bus which we’d booked for the occasion. It was markedly unusual, however, to see such well-dressed people sitting on one of Tal-al’s rather ancient minibuses, festooned with tasseled curtains, fake plastic flowers and one small, heart-shaped pillow, with the word “love” emblazoned in gold thread across the front of its plush red surface, hanging from the rearview mirror. It was also rare to see so many people sitting up on the bus, since we usually fall asleep nearly instantly for any drives to site. However, a crowd of 19 Junior Excavators, Junior Staff and Senior Staff cheerfully chatted our way through the 2 hour drive from Aqaba to Petra. We rolled through the mountains as Mike, Erin and I drank frozen water, chilled specially for the occasion. I was in the very front seat, and it offered the most beautiful panoramic view of the mountains as we climbed their crest. Unfortunately, it also allowed me to see that we were inches from driving off the road, and I definitely noticed that our driver seemed more intent on snacking than steering when the edge was closest. Uh oh.
When we reached Petra, there was some immediate confusion over where we would be dropped off – the driver seemed convinced we wanted to go to Petra Palace, a swanky hotel that none of the students could afford, while we repeatedly worked to convey that we wanted to be dropped off at the gates to the site itself so we would know our way when we returned later that night. This led to about 20 confused minutes of arguing, phoning people with better English to get them to translate, pulling people onto the bus to translate, and finally giving up altogether only to realize that the gate was less than 50m from Petra Palace, where the arguments were taking place, and that we could actually see it from the bus itself. Kind of embarrassing, I’d say, and really frustrating to boot. Now, the bus had come down a mountain to reach the gate, but I had seen the sign for our hostel, and it wad definitely at the top of the mountain. So we marched up from the gate, taking about 20 minutes to climb to the top, and a few minutes more to figure out which direction we needed to take to retrace our drive. We arrived to Saba’a (Sun, which also means Saturday AND the number 7 – gets confusing) with two other groups in tow, got to our room, dropped our stuff and packed small bags for the evening, went to grab dinner at a small open-air barbecue restaurant overlooking the sunset, and hurriedly continued downhill to the gate, where we were to meet up with the others.
Those of us who had planned an overnight had come down Thursday evening specifically for Petra by Night, which the Lonely Planet described to me as an adventure where, “Like a grumbling camel caravan of snorting coughing, laughing, and farting miscreants, 200 people and one jubilantly crying baby make their way down the Siq ‘in silence.’” Naturally, the majority of the excavators thought this sounded like a wonderful idea. Being a total nutcase for planning, I’d called ahead to reserve our 17 tickets, so we arrived at the gate and experienced only mild to moderate confusion when finding where to pay and actually paying for them. It was pretty ridiculous, but fortunately sorted itself out pretty quickly. By 8:30, groups were lined up to enter the Siq. Based on their behaviour, I’d say that they read the Lonely Planet entry as well – they were taking their coughing, laughing, and farting pretty seriously. Thus, we started our Journey as part of a rushing throng of exceptionally loud people, our group included. After a few moments, Mike, Erin, and I started trailing behind the crowds, until the numbers of people thinned out and the noise became an ever more distant hum. Looking over to the left, there was the faint outline of a rock face. Looking more closely, we could see detailed carvings and entry points in the rock itself. Realizing what we were looking at was so shocking – even knowing what we would see definitely did not prepare me for its actual appearance before us. No guidebook, lecture, or amount of prior knowledge could do that.