Jordan Day 4. Petra at last

30 Jan. So now I have seen Petra! WOW! It lived up to all my expectations and more! We were at the gate at 8.20 and started down the Sik (the road through the rocks)with our guide. The tops of the great rock formations were gleaming pink in the sun. The guide pointed out features like the water channel that runs all the way down, a formation in the shape of an elephant's head, the remains of a man's legs, with the feet of two camels behind him.

As we went round the bends (just wide enough for horses and small carriages, the anticipation and expectation rose. Will it be round the next corner? We knew it was 1.2 km down, and finally there it was, the keyhole view of the Treasury that is so famous. It is heavily Egyptian, and the front is greatly eroded when you look at drawings of it done in about 1840 by David Roberts. But of course The Treasury was just the first of so many fantastic sights.

We walked on through the rocks and came to open ground. As the area widened out, we could see that all along the sides there are caves in the rocks. They tower above the valley. Bedouin tribes used to live in the caves but the government resettled them in houses in the 1970's. However, eight families still live there.

High up on the rocks to the right are the royal tombs. These consist of enormous rooms cut into the rocks, with the outside cut to look like buildings. These structures are amazing!

Below the royal tombs, are normal sized ones for ordinary people. All around are great outcrops of rocks in layers of dull red, pale blue and grey swirls - I have never seen anything like it. We came across the son of the NZ woman who wrote the book 'Married to a Bedouin.' He had two stalls selling her book and jewellery the two of them had made. She had been living in Sydney until recently, but has moved back to Jordan because her three children live there.

On and on to the Roman city, with remains of huge temples, a gigantic altar and the market place. Easy walking on the grand paved street through the middle. Our guided tour ended at the start of the path to the Monastery. It was 10.30 and we had been walking for two hours - that perhaps gives some idea of the immensity of the site! We had a drink and then -

Off to the monastery. They say there are 850 steps, but in fact much of it is going up easy rocks; the steps are only there when the natural rock would have been too steep or rough to walk up. One of our group went on a donkey but the other six intrepids decided to walk. The rock formations are out of this world; something like the Grand Canyon in the US of A; probably even more spectacular as there are so many different colours and shapes. All this area looks thrust up rather than eroded.

Finally we came to the top and there was the monastery. It appears to be only a facade, with one large room cut into the hill. Goats with kids were running around and there was a goat herder keeping an eye on them. Onions were planted all over the area in the sand; thick sea green leaves sticking up. We have seen them for sale in the markets.

Needed a bit more time at the top really, but it was best to keep with the group. So we retraced our tracks; down from the monastery, back past the Roman town. I went up on the left hillside to look into the huge royal tombs and we walked and walked and walked. Finally arrived at our hotel at 4 pm. We calculated that we had walked at least 8 km. What a day! A day to remember for the rest of my life!