Dave and Fintan at the Treasury Building in Petra
No trip to Jordan is complete without visiting the spectacular hidden city of Petra so we were up early to explore this amazing site. The Nabataean Arabs carved magnificent palaces, temples and tombs into red sandstone cliffs during the 3rd Century BC to create an amazing complex hidden in a canyon.
The Treasury building viewed through the Siq
This wonder of the world can only be accessed through a narrow 1.2km canyon path which opens dramatically to a view of the city’s undisputed gem, the Treasury Building. In fact, this structure was the famous location for one of the Indiana Jones movies.
The boys at the Monastery in Petra
We walked around the vast site for a good few hours. The place was full of tourists and the always present hawkers trying to sell you anything from water to donkey rides. Dave challenged Fintan to a donkey drag race but was smashed in both races with Dave claiming shenanigans due to underhanded help from the donkey’s trainer.
We ended up doing two draining climbs, the biggest of which was to a scary cliff vantage point surrounding the treasury buildings.
Dave and Fintan too close to the edge overlooking Petra
Knackered after a long days trekking, we had a horrible dinner at a local restaurant followed by the perfect dessert for Fintan in the form of the first tire lick of the trip. We hit the road again towards Aqaba on the Jordanian Coast of the Red Sea. For obvious political reasons, passports containing Israeli Visa stamps are not permitted to enter most of the surrounding Middle Eastern countries. Therefore we must catch a car ferry across the Red Sea to Nuweiba in Egypt.
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