"Petra" Petra by Ramonq

click: Arab caravan music

For sheer dramatic experience of stumbling into a lost city in the desert, Petra just cannot be beaten. I have seen photos of the ancient rock city cut from the granite cliffs just outside Wadi Musa, but nothing prepared me for the surreal feeling of being actually there. The long passage way called the "Siq" that leads to the city, is actually the floor of a very deep rocky gorge and this alone is quite exciting enough because it felt strange to be narrowly enclosed by steep reddish rocks on both sides. The Siq goes for about a kilometre and while I was walking towards the main site of the lost city, I was filled with anticipation similar to a child at the back of the car asking dad who's driving it, "are we there yet?"

Then lo and behold, in the crack at the end of the Siq there's something peeking. As you get closer, you can see a cropped view of a beautiful rusty-coloured classical Roman building that's carved from a cliff. This is probably one of the most dramatic way of using a natural setting to enter a city. And as soon as you finally come out of the Siq, and enter the confined rocky space, voila (!), the fabled Treasury Building of Petra all in its full glory! This jaw-dropping building is actually a very fancy man-made cave carved elaborately from the reddish ravine.

It's interesting to note that the classic Treasury Building is the first building that you'll see when entering Petra. Maybe because Petra, which means "Rock" in Latin, was once a mercantile empire that derived most of its wealth in customs duties from the camel caravans that came all the way from Abysinnia, Thebes, Athens or Damascus and had no other alternative but to pass through Petra, an oasis that has been transformed into an important trading junction. This city must have extorted a lot of toll money from the passing trade because one can easily deduce that a lot of resources were spent to contruct these lavish structures around the abandoned city. But some historians think that the Treasury building is actually a temple. No one knows for sure because the secrets of Petra are buried deeply in the Jordanian sand.

As you leave this rock chamber you enter another ravine pathway that opens up to a large valley containing the bulk of the city of Petra. Petra was founded by the Nabataeans around two and half thousand years ago. They took advantage of the fine location and the city flourished by collecting taxes from the passing trade. The ancient Romans finally invaded the area in the second century AD, and transformed it into a classic Roman city complete with amphitheatres, baths and colonnaded streets. However, new and more prosperous trade routes emerged and the city eventually declined to the point of oblivion for almost a thousand years until it was rediscovered by a Swiss explorer, Burckhardt in 1812 after acting on a tip from the nomadic Bedouins.

Monastery Building

In Petra you'll be able to compare the more basic Nabataean architecture to the stylistic ancient Roman styles. Because Petra was an important trading city, the Nabataeans were able to borrow different architectural styles from Greek to Egyptian and of course, Roman. I really took some time to explore this ancient city and basked under the sheer magnificence of it. There are countless cave-like dwellings and temples all over the place and if you study the architectural styles closely, they are quite eclectic ie., not in pure classic forms. The two finest examples of these Petran architecture are the Treasury Building and the Monastery Building which is located high up in the mountain in the remote part of the city.

Some of these caves even house nomadic Bedouin families. Only wanting the basic necessities of life, the Bedouins have come to grasp the onslaught of tourists into their once protected existence. Many now rely on the lucrative trade of tourism, probably an eerie echo from their Nabataean heritage. Trade from passing caravans made Petra wealthy, will trade from passing tourists resurrect the place to its former glory? Ask the Bedouin peasants that sell trinkets along the paths. Will tourism improve their lot?

• Pros:incredible archaeological site
• Cons:the heat
• In a nutshell:The place to see in Jordan