Across the Desert, Through the Mountains (6/28/2008)

"Forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and 'X' never, ever marks the spot."
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

It was fitting that I visited Petra in the summer of the fourth "Indiana Jones" installment. We had last left Indy, nineteen years ago, outside the Treasury, the best-preserved relic of the ancient Nabatean lost city. While the rose-red facade doesn't house the Holy Grail - or anything, really - its simple majesty is overwhelming. If the cup of Christ were stashed away somewhere, here's as good a place as any.

Petra is Jordan's holy grail too. In a desert country whose neighbors dwarf it in headlines and vistors (more on that in my next installment), Petra is the lone exception which steadily fills the hotels, restaurants, and state coffers. Busloads pour in, almost magnetically, from all around the region; you can find day-long excursions to Petra everywhere from Tel Aviv, Cairo, Eilat, and certainly Amman. For a country devoid of its neighbors' oil and religious historicity, Petra is, poetically and ironically, Jordan's treasury.

Most amusing is that nothing else in Petra looks like the Treasury. It's much like St. Basil's cathedral in Moscow - iconic dressing, but hardly representative of the rest of the salad. Petra is far more than Indy's last crusade; it is the anticipation that builds as you descend the 3/4-mile Siq (entry path) and watch is walls rise to 200 feet over your head. It is the Royal Tombs that peer over the city with their elaborately cut sandstone. It is the amphitheater which looks out, almost on nothing. It is the collonaded city center and freestanding temples which are more of your typical "ruins." All together, it's the last vestage of a civilization that, were this city not found less than two centuries ago - would be lost to all but a few scholars. Don't expect miles of Indy's view, but don't let that disappoint.

Petra is not for the weak-hearted, or better said, the weak-soled. The walking you put in is staggering - you hoof more than a mile in desert heat before you even see the Treasury (your first glimpse of anything), and that doesn't even account for the miles beyond the famous facade. The town center is perhaps another mile, if you don't climb up to any of the royal tombs or lookouts. If you can hoof it to the Monastery, you're in for another mile or more straight uphill (or, in New Zealand English, "flat"). The Monastery is particularly rewarding; as you ascend the switchbacks, ancient staircases, and paths that skirt sheer rock faces, you compete against a diminishing water supply and a mid-day desert sun. If a king was buried up here - as Nabatea's Obodas I was - he obviously didn't want pokey travelers to find him. The view - legs be damned - is staggering: atop a higher, neighboring mountain is Aaron's (Moses' brother's) tomb, and directly due east are the Dead Sea and the Israeli fronteir. For all the humdrum and biblicalness of Moses' view from Mt. Nebo, Aaron and his second fiddle have him beaten hands down. Cast the Golden Calf, earn a better view. There's biblical irony.

While those busloads usually dip in and out within a few hours, Petra provides its visitors with days', maybe even weeks', worth of similar hikes. She's yours, as long as your legs can take it. Indeed, after every Petra hike - however long or short - your last trip is always more than a mile back to the entrance -- all uphill. As a vigilant traveler - not an in/out day-tripper - you don't visit Petra; you conquer it. For me, two days exploring successfully decommissioned my legs for another three, and I undoubtedly got the better deal. So while I didn't stumble upon the Holy Grail, I did leave with some exhausted - but golden - calves.

Matt

PS: This log is out of order -- Petra came before Jerusalem -- but I have a few more that I'll be sending over the next few days. Bear with me... until next time.