Ancient Petra--a city carved in stone

A wall of tombs in the middle of Petra

Looking at Petra from the road above, you wouldn't know it was any different from other rugged valleys and mountains of southern Jordan.  But, when you actually walk into this ancient city, mostly abandoned after a big earthquake in the 4th century AD, you look in awe at what the Nabataeans created.  Petra is a city carved from the rose-colored cliffs, originally a burial site and later occupied by Nabataens, Romans and Bedouin. 

valley of Petra from the road above the city

the Treasury

The tombs were carved from the top down.  They are beautifully decorated with columns, capitals, and statues.  Some carvings show the trading life of the city before the Romans took over in the 2nd century AD (having first arrived in Petra in the first century BC).  Nabataeans eventually moved into the valley of their tombs and developed an active market center.  Under Roman rule, Petra declined and lost its trading status to other cities under Roman domination.

Nabataean water channel cut into cliff

The Nabataeans knew how to live in this desert environment, capturing rain water behind small dams and carving water channels for both irrigation and domestic use in the sandstone cliffs.  Jordan is still very careful about water today, saving rain water and using roof-top water tanks that get filled weekly to limit water use.

tomb where my kids joined a soccer game years ago

When my kids were young, we took them on a trip to Egypt, Jordan and Israel, stopping in Petra overnight to explore the then-quiet ruins.  There were so few tourists that local boys were playing soccer in one of the largest tombs cut into the cliff.  Our kids joined them for a soccer game. 
None of that now as thousands of tourists visit Petra every day and souvenir vendors line the main thoroughfare and all the pathways to the tombs and temples.  When cruise ships dock in Aqaba, Jordan's port on the Red Sea 2 hours away, busloads of cruisers come to Petra.  It's a wonderful excursion, but the ship's time restraints limit their visit to the Siq and the Treasury, missing the next 3 miles of wonderful structures that make up Petra.

entrance to the Siq

You enter Petra through the Siq, a winding, narrow gorge that runs for 3/4 mile to the opening of the valley.  The first thing you see is the Treasury, the iconic symbol of Petra.  It is beautifully carved, with several small rooms behind the facade.  But, there is so much more.  Continue down the Roman road, much of it paved in the original limestone blocks, and you pass cliffs completely lined with tombs, until




















you come to the widest part of the valley where the Romans built a large temple and marketplace and, later, Christians built churches.  Some areas have gorgeously colored rock on the cliffs, the ceilings and the walls of the tombs.

the Monastery

For those who want a little more exercise, you can climb up 1000 steps through a gorge to a temple or tomb called the Monastery.  You share the steps with hundreds of fellow tourists, donkeys carrying the faint of heart who fear climbing the steps (not that riding a donkey up 1000 steps is any lark),  goats who take shortcuts down the cliffs, and several dozen Bedouin tents all with identical merchandise.  It's all worth the effort because the Monastery is beautiful, standing alone at the top of the mountain.  On the way to the Monastery, we passed the modern use for some of the cave tombs--parking for trucks.

local parking

In order to employ more people at Petra, the government requires you to buy a horseback ride from the Visitor's Center to the opening of the Siq--but most people walk anyway.  There are lots of transportation options--horse-drawn carts, camels, donkeys and horses.  But, your own feet are the best since they give you time to stop wherever you want for as long as you want and to climb to whatever tombs or temples you want to see.  Meanwhile, the owners of these various means of transport continue to ask if you'd like a ride and, when you say "no, thank you", they say kindly, "OK, you think about it.  Take your time.  Maybe on the way back."

gorgeous ceiling and walls of tomb, all natural rock

Jordan's magnificent desert--Wadi Rum

Wadi Rum vista

Years ago, Don and I camped for a night in Wadi Rum, the magnificent desert in southern Jordan that runs to the Saudi Arabia border and beyond.  That night, we slept in sleeping bags under the stars at a very basic camp, one of the few available at the time.

enjoying our jeeps

Today, there are large camps with traditional (sort of) Bedouin tents, complete with en suite bathrooms, and ugly domed rooms that reportedly have retractable roofs allowing the occupants to enjoy the clear, starry night.  These big camps don't appeal to me--so-called camping in the desert with 50 or 60 tents/domes and a large, echo-y dining hall are not what I'm looking for in a desert experience.  But, Wadi Rum is huge and has some small camps that give you at least some idea of a desert overnight, which is wonderful.

adorable baby and mom

After a not-so-great lunch in one of the impersonal and completely non-traditional, echo-y dining halls, we loaded ourselves into 3 open jeeps and drove off to tour the dunes, buttes and rocky canyons of this incredible place.  In fact, it is so stunning that many movies have been made here and, of course, we saw some of those highlights.  I can certainly understand why a filmmaker would want to use this landscape as the backdrop for a movie.

"dripping candle" cliff

Our driver sashayed up one of the dunes at full blast, but couldn't quite make it to the top of the butte, so roared around the side until he found slightly more solid ground.  I would find this tearing up of the dunes alarming except that the wind-blown sand quickly covers over most of the tracks.  The sand is golden and smooth against the dark cliffs, creating a very dramatic sight.
One cliff, behind a Bedouin tent where we had tea, looks like dripping candle wax.  Water, sand and wind have molded this cliff face, unlike anything else we saw in Wadi Rum.  Camels are everywhere, ready for a tourist to take a ride.  They are such stately animals, marching slowly and elegantly across the desert.
This large valley was a caravan route for traders across the centuries.  Several thousand years ago, some travelers left stories of their journeys on the cliffs.  Most of these have weathered away, but a few remain from so long ago.

ancient rock art

Wadi Rum is very worth a visit if you're traveling in Jordan, a chance to see one of the more spectacular areas of this desert country.  It is home to wolves, foxes, hyenas (that surprised me), oryx, rodents and birds in addition to the herds of goats and sheep owned by the Bedouin, who still move with their animals in search of grass and water.  Right now, there has been a lot of rain, so there are patches of green on the rocks and dunes.  The animals look well cared-for amidst this time of plenty.  But, this way of life won't last indefinitely as mining, tourism, new roads for the growing truck traffic bringing goods from the Gulf of Aqaba to Amman and beyond, and other industries impinge on the traditional way of life. 

A day in Amman and the ancient Roman city of Jerash

Temple of Hercules at the Citadel, Amman

Amman is the "white city" because buildings are required to be built or faced with limestone or alabaster.  It is also built on thousands of years of history from the Iron Ages forward, through Ammonites to Nabataeans to Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans and today's Jordanians. 

view of Amman from the Citadel

The best view of the city is from the Roman Citadel on top one of Amman's hills, with its 360 degree views of the city's hills and valleys.  There is a wonderful small museum in the Citadel that has well-designed displays of pottery, statues, jewelry and other artifacts, starting with the earliest Iron Age 10,000 years ago.

Roman amphitheater, Amman

Today was chilly, but beautiful, as the sun shone on the limestone temples of the Citadel, making them glow against the dark clouds.
About an hour north of Amman is the Greco-Roman city of Jerash which was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in the mid-8th century AD.  These are the ruins that remain, but before this time, the area was occupied by Iron Age settlements.  Alexander the Great reportedly founded the city on his way from Egypt to Mesopotamia in 331 BC.
There has been much excavation and restoration work in Jerash since the mid-1990's.  Before that, it was mostly covered with sand.  As you look out across the surrounding hills, you can see many piles of rubble, presumably Roman buildings destroyed in the 749 AD earthquake.  There is much more work to do, but resources are spread thin across all the archaeological work that needs to be done around the world.  Meanwhile, a visit to Jerash is wonderful right now.

Jerash--flowers and colonnade

This is the city of a thousand columns--or something like that.  They stand everywhere, along the long avenues that cut through the center of the ancient city, surrounding the Forum and many temples, framing the gates to the city. 

Roman capital, Jerash

Beautifully decorated capitals line the avenues and temples, ready to be reinstalled someday atop the columns they once graced. 
You enter the city through the Gate of Hadrian, the same Hadrian who built the wall across northern England.  This gate leads to a long boulevard lined by columns and on to the Forum, a large and graceful space with surrounding columns.  There are many highlights, but one is certainly the Theater, a Roman amphitheater with stone seats rising from the stage below.  Some of the world's leading singers have performed here during the summer concerts.  It must be a fabulous evening to sit in this lovely space listening to arias.

Roman theater, Jerash

We wandered on, to St. George's Church, with Byzantine mosaics on the floor.  Our guide explained that the Romans used larger stones for their mosaics while the Byzantines preferred very small stones to create their designs.

Roman Forum, Jerash

Next down the way is the Temple of Artemis with its beautiful columns.  Inside, I spent a few minutes talking to one of the many vendors, this one selling necklaces.  He is 27 years old and very anxious to visit the United States.  He has tried twice to get a visa, but been denied.  Now he is hoping to meet an American woman and marry her so he can come to the U.S.  He told me he loves Americans and America.

Hadrian's Gate, Jerash

Amman has had quite a bit of rain over the last few weeks, so the air is clear, the hills bright green, and the wildflowers lush, especially wild mustard.  This is a great time to visit when golden mustard and some brilliant red poppies highlight the limestone ruins in the sunlight.

Mosaics on the floor of St. George's church, Jerash

The overwhelming beauty of Luxor

the winged serpent, Mehen, protected Nefetari

(photos of paintings from the Valleys of the Queens and Kings are from books about those sites since photos are not permitted inside the tombs)

It's hard to know where to start with Luxor.  There is so much to see--and it is all wonderful.  We started with the Valley of the Queens, which many tour groups don't visit because the tombs are too small for a crowd.  In this rugged, rocky and very dry desert valley, nothing grows. 

Valley of the Queens

Here the ancient Egyptians, about 1550 BC, began burying their queens (kings in the nearby Valley of the Kings) deep inside the cliffs rather than in obvious mausoleums like pyramids.  These tombs, they believed, they could hide and keep safe from grave robbers, but this proved futile as wily Egyptians figured out how to steal the rich contents of these tombs just like they did with the pyramid burials.

Nefetari playing checkers in her tomb

The jewel of the Valley of the Queens is Nefertari's Tomb, often closed to public view.  We were lucky; the tomb has been reopened to 150 visitors a day and we were able to get tickets to this gorgeous burial place.  What makes these tombs so remarkable is the quality of the colors that have survived for 3500 years. and the beauty and detail of the etched paintings on the walls.  Deep inside the cliffs, they had no exposure to light or oxygen, so maintain their rich color today.  Nefertari's Tomb has the most vivid colors of all.
There are 72 identified tombs in the Valley of the Queens and 64 in the Valley of the Kings.  But, all you have to do is scan the mountainsides to see that many more exist here, some known and some not. 

Ramses VI as cheetah

The archaeologists do not want to open any additional tombs until they have the resources to stabilize and protect each new find.  Otherwise, the elements will destroy the paintings.
In the Valley of the Kings, our favorite tomb was that of Ramses VI.  Its detail is incredible.  Ramses VI is the only pharaoh found so far who was buried with another pharaoh.  He died before his own tomb was finished, so the Egyptians had to bury him with Ramses V in the latter's tomb. 

pharaoh with jackal god, god of mummification

The workers who did the digging, moving of huge stones, and painting lived nearby in an area called Deir el Medina.  Again, most tours do not visit this superb site, but I recommend it highly.  This is where the workers lived with their families. 

painting from workers' tomb at Deir el Medina

They were taken to the tombs of the kings and queens each day to work, blindfolded so they could not reveal to anyone where the tombs were, riding donkeys led by the workers' leaders.   If they had known where the tombs were, they would have been killed to protect the tombs' inhabitants and possessions, and then there would have been no more artisans to prepare the tombs.
In Deir el Medina, the workers dug small tombs and painted them with leftover paint they'd scrounged from the royal tombs.  Rather than depicting all the gods and royal luxuries, the workers painted scenes from their lives, their animals and crops, as well as some of their favorite gods.  They often had multiple burials in each tomb.

Colossi of Memnon

Just outside these valleys, on the plain, was a huge temple guarded by the Colossi of Memnon.  Excavation is ongoing at this site, so there isn't much to see yet, but the Colossi are worthy of a visit.  I remember seeing photos of them long ago in my history books.  They are massive and impressive.

Luxor Temple at dusk

Luxor has 2 enormous temples that have long been under excavation and study, the Temple of Luxor and Karnak.  Karnak is 8 times larger than the Temple of Luxor, but the two were connected by a long road lined with sphinxes.  Some of these sphinxes are lined up again at Karnak, an impressive sight.
We visited the Temple of Luxor in the late afternoon, along with thousands of other tourists.  It is always busy. 

papyrus columns at Luxor Temple

There is a long boulevard of giant columns, leading to multiple courtyards where the commoners gathered to worship the gods.  As with the other temples along the Nile, only the king and high priests could go into the inner chamber which housed the altar for offerings to the gods. 

mosque at Luxor Temple

Also as with the other temples, Luxor was painted in brilliant colors to further awe the gathered masses.  Later, a church occupied one of the large courtyards.  Since sand filled much of this temple, there is also a mosque high up on one wall, built from the base of the top of the sand.

courtyard with columns at Karnak

Karnak Temple takes your breath away.  It is not only enormous (and still under extensive excavation), but it has what I think is the most beautiful courtyard of all the temples I've seen--the courtyard of columns.  Each column was carved and painted.  Two obelisks, one the largest left in Egypt, occupy prime spots in its Karnak's central corridor.  There are many large statues cut from single blocks of stone guarding the temple.

remains of mud-brick ramp at Karnak

pharaohs at Karnak

In order to build walls of such great height (over 70 feet tall), workers constructed mud-brick ramps as they built higher so that they could build, plaster, engrave and paint these walls.  At Karnak, one of these ramps still partially exists because  Karnak was never fully completed during its long period of construction.

row of sphinxes at Karnak

Karnak obelisk

Cruising down the Nile

fishing in the Nile by Luxor at sunset

We spent 4 days cruising down the Nile from Aswan to Luxor.  I like going this way because the ancient sites in Luxor are the most spectacular of all the magnificent places to visit in Upper Egypt.  It's easy to fly to Abu Simbel from Cairo, then back to Aswan the same day to board the cruise boat.
While you're off the boat much of the time seeing the ancient Egyptian temples and monuments, you can spend cruising time along the nearly 180 mile trip looking at the fields and villages that depend on the river's water.

women gathered by the Nile to socialize

tending crops on floating island

The Nile still floods, but flooding is now controlled by water releases from the dams at Aswan.  So, no more rich deposits of silt spreading out across miles of land on either side of the river and no more channels flowing to the temples and pyramids and quarries that depended on them thousands of years ago.  There are long canals and ditches instead that water the fields. 

lucky donkey resting

Unfortunately, there is also a lot of trash clogging the canals, making it difficult in some places for the water to flow at all.
The government has finally become concerned about all the construction on Egypt's tiny bands of arable land that line the river.  About 3 years ago, it started enforcing a law that forbids building on the arable land by the Nile.  Homes, apartment buildings and even towns that take up this land are being moved to the bordering desert. 
When we tied up along the Nile bank just north of Luxor, some of us walked through the twilight to a nearby village.  As we left the secured area by the boat, an ever-present guide took us in tow, through beautiful fields of wheat and vegetables, and along the road to the village.  The wheat is tall and luxuriant right now, with large heads of grain.  Farmers plant other fields with fodder for their animals, onions, carrots, potatoes, melons, bananas and   lettuce.  Some grow tomatoes in greenhouses.

Nile banana farm

Most of this produce is transported to market via donkey-drawn wagons, old trucks or tractors pulling flat wagons.  A lot of the farmers also had a couple of dairy cows, sheep and goats.  We did not see any chickens on our walk and, of course, no pigs. 
When we returned to the boat, our "guide", who had been explaining how he took care of his kids and had to feed them and pay for school and so on, demanded more tip money than we gave him (we gave him a lot), starting with me and moving to the rest of our walking party, who also demurred.  Everywhere you go, expect someone to want to show you something special in return for a tip.  Life is not easy here.

sheep penned for night

mud brick village

Fishermen are out in the early mornings in small boats pulling in nets.  There are small floating islands that farmers plant with vegetables.  They tend these by boat, much like farmers living on Inle Lake in Myanmar.  Other boatmen cut the sugar cane that grows along the river banks (most of the sugar cane, however, grows in large fields and is an important crop in the agricultural economy here).

fields of wheat ripening

Families swim and wash clothes in the river, which is none too clean.  It is a gathering place, the key to the local economies, the heart of Egypt.

Along the Nile--Kom Ombo and Edfu

Kom Ombo gate at dusk

This is my third cruise down the Nile and I'm learning more than ever before because we have such a good guide.  He is a restoration engineer working at the Valley of the Kings to stabilize and restore the magnificent tombs there.  He does guiding during his days off. 

Sobek, the crocodile god

We docked for a visit to the temple of Kom Ombo last evening about 5:30, just in time to walk from the boat to this very interesting site as the sun set in the west and the full moon rose in the east.
One of the 2 main gods at Kom Ombo (a temple dedicated to 2 gods is unusual) is Sobek, the crocodile god.  The Nile used to have thousands of crocodiles and, apparently, still has some, not visible to us. 

crocodile frieze

The ancient Egyptians used to mummify crocodiles, so we went to the Crocodile Museum to see some of them.  They even mummified crocodile eggs, which provided an amazing sight--an egg (the size of a goose egg) that was just hatching when it was eternally preserved.  Inside is a perfect, tiny crocodile skeleton, folded up as if it were just waiting to free itself from the eggshell right at that moment.  It's feet have complete, very tiny, claws.  It even has teeth fully-formed in its mouth.  I wish I could have taken a photo because I've never seen anything like this before.
One wall has an early Egyptian calendar laid out in intricate detail showing each day of each month.

Egyptian calendar carved on temple wall

A round disk represents the sun, so the day, while hieroglyphs signifying numbers spell out each specific day.  Egyptians used a 365 day calendar, broken into 3-week long months, with some months being 31 days and others, shorter.

medical tools of ancient Egypt

Another wall is covered with medical tools and, apparently, recipes for tinctures and potions for treating disease.  The tools include scalpels, scissors, a charming little tube for giving enemas, which our guide proudly proclaimed were invented by Egyptians, needles and so on.  There is a stone chair for childbirth, in which the mother crouches over a hole.  Below, a midwife is perched to catch the baby.  It all looks excruciatingly uncomfortable, but probably effective.
We continued cruising last night towards Luxor, stopping at Edfu sometime during the night.  The temple is truly an astonishing sight--so huge and beautifully preserved.  The temple was filled by blowing sand from the frequent sandstorms before Roman times and was used by Romans for cooking, so the ceiling is black from the smoke.  The sand is what preserved the intricately carved friezes inside.

main entrance to Edfu temple

We left the boat early so that we could be the first visitors this morning, and that paid off.  No one else was there.  We took horse-drawn carriages to the site, which would have been a fun way to see the town, but the horses were too poorly cared for to make this enjoyable.  In fact, I wouldn't do this again.  Next time, we'll use tuk tuks.  I don't want to support mistreatment of animals in any way.  Our guide refuses to use the carriages himself because of the skinny horses and constantly beating whips.  I agree with him.  Later, near Luxor, we walked through some luscious farmlands bright green with wheat, animal fodder and vegetables, and found animals much better cared-for than the poor horses in Edfu.

giant columns scarred by cooking fires

The Edfu temple is surrounded by walls so high you feel like an ant as you walk along the long, open corridor between the temple and outer walls.  Everything is covered with friezes, including one series showing Horus capturing and killing his uncle, who is considered to be Satan.  Inside, there is an entire room devoted to pharmaceuticals, with all the walls covered by carvings depicting medical tools and remedies.  Absolutely fascinating to see a little piece of 3000 year old medical science.

figure of ibis

Priests had to be scientists of doctors.  Only they and the pharaoh could go into the inner sanctum of the temples.  Everyone else gathered outside in large courtyards to worship.  While temples are monochromatic beige today, every inch was brightly colored in their heyday, with reds, blues, greens, yellows and more.  They were meant to impress the villagers and farmers, who came to worship the gods at one of the many festivals, with their immensity and glory, thereby keeping the common people in awe of the kings, priests and gods and afraid to challenge their authority.

soldier with belly

In this temple, you can see the beginnings of figures taking shapes, showing muscles, breasts, buttocks, bellies and belly buttons and a little bit of perspective.

schoolchildren visiting Edfu Temple

Leaving the temple, we ran into large groups of schoolchildren who shouted "hello" and wanted to high-five us.  One group sang us a song of welcome.

Horus killing Satan (the little creature at the bottom of the frieze)