Petra Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

I’d like to say we woke up around 6AM Thursday morning, but the truth is we weren’t ever truly asleep.  It was still windy as all get out, but a gentle breeze compared with last night, and at least the sun was shining.  The camp was a shambles, but our Bedouin hosts still laid out a buffet breakfast inside the only permanent structure there.  It was basically one large room where all twenty of our British-Irish hiking gang had slept in a pile after the tents collapse...

The giant red mountains and vast mausoleums of a departed race have nothing in common with modern civilization, and ask nothing of it except to be appreciated at their true value - as one of the greatest wonders ever wrought by Nature and Man. Although much has been written about Petra, nothing really prepares you for this amazing place. It has to be seen to be believed. Often described as the eighth wonder of the ancient world, it is without doubt Jordan’s most valuable treasure and grea...

We slept in a little this morning (because yesterday's hike wore us out), and went down to grab breakfast in the dining area of the hostel.  After breakfast, we thought it a good idea to head back down to the market to grab some more food for lunch.  We then returned to the hostel and got our ride back to the entrance to Petra.  Today, as we were walking towards the Siq, a local radio station stopped us and asked us if they could do an interview.  We said sure.  The r...

Visiting Petra is really exciting, though its only 15-20% excavated, the area offers an extravagant view.

Guidebooks, magazine articles, and other tourists wax on and on about Petra. “If you only go to one place in Jordan, it had better be Petra…” and so on and so forth. So today we finally got to see what all the fuss is about. We were not disappointed!The ancient city of Petra was literally carved from stone in the 1st to 3rd centuries by the Nabataeans (I had never heard of them before, either). It is now an expansive (and impressive, and amazing, and astounding, etc) archeology site. We...

I have been travelling around the Middle East for a couple of weeks now and have finally gotten two days off. What to do, oh what to do? Well for me the no. 1 thing was to get to Petra but I was not sure how to do so, how long it would take, or how much it would cost.   Research showed that I could take either a bus or a taxi and that the bus was much cheaper. I opted for a bus as it would give me an opportunity to meet people and have a chat. I planned to do Petra in just o...

The Treasury at Petra. The ancient city of Petra is about two hours North of Aqaba. 2000 years ago Petra was a refuge for nomadic Nabateans who travelled North from Arabia. From a few caves in a rocky outcrop they created Petra as a concealed fortress city. To reach the city you will travel through the awesome 'siq', a winding, kilometre long fissure between overhanging cliffs. At the end of the Si...

Before I came to Petra I was told it would be an amazing sight but to go there as early as possible because of the heat. Furthermore I had heard everyone going there would come back broken because of hiking all day in the heat and the sun burning down from the sky.   I got to Petra early and met a guide who took the group into Petra we walk through the narrow passage way that leads into Petra seeing the colours of the town and the way they had managed to supply the city wit...

Petra might just now be my favorite ruin site ever.  It is beautiful and vast and interesting from every angle. We got there early, so glad that we did.  The whole valley was almost empty- it felt like we had the city to ourselves.  First there is the Treasury, and it is as perfect as is seems- on the outside...remember that most of these structures were tombs so the insides are almost all just big empty rooms. Then we climbed to the High Place of Sacrifice- it was a brisk wa...

During Christmas and NYE I spend my time in Jordan. It was my first time there and I loved it and didn't want to leave. I took about 500 pictures, but I wont show them all haha. I'll wright my journal later, first it's time to show some pictures!!

Spent a week in Jordan and this time I got to do more touring than usual.

Three days ago I walked through the Siq at Petra, it is a long path that cuts through massive rock and ends at the Treasury (from Indiana Jones). It got more and more amazing as we walked through: the walls grew higher and since we went in the early morning, the path was quiet and still. When I first saw the treasury I tried to put my feelings into words, because Ali (a man I work with) told me to tell him exactly what I felt, but I couldn't do it. I didn't feel the awe that other people t...

Today was a wonderful day. Exhaustion and earplugs let me have a seven hour sleep through Ken's snoring, and there was decent orange juice with breakfast. Petra. A rose-red city, half as old as time (actually Burgon retracted the ‘rose-red’ afterwards, when he visited and thought it was more salmon-pink). I spent the entire day wandering through Petra with Tamara. The ancient city was beautiful and wonderful. It was built by the Nabataeans when they moved from north-weste...

Read any of my blogs and you will know that I am a cynical and hard to impress writer..see if Petra managed it..... here is a hint..I need a good nights sleep and some time to get the 200+ photos into a usable format. I will delete this log entry and add a new one when it is ready.Happy Valentines blah de blah de blah!

Wow...all the pictures that you see on the web will not prepare you for Petra. It's amazing and a place where you can really let your imagination run wild. Having just become one of the new wonders of the world, the already crowded Petra will likely be even busier...but that's just the way it is as it really is worth the visit.Petra was a trading city founded by Nabateans, who flourished due to the old trade routes. They became extremely rich and created the city as their cultural center. As ...