We leave Amman and head south through a series of dusty and rundown looking villages towards Petra the jewel in the crown of Jordan. We’re travelling along what’s known as “the Kings Highway”, so called because this ancient road once linked three separate kingdoms. The road, along which Moses also led the Israelites towards the Promised Land, runs for part of the way along the eastern edge of the Great Rift Valley affording some spectacular views as well as many ancient sites and ruins. We saw quite a few of the latter, but not so much as a glimpse of the “Promised Land” because views of the river Jordan, the Dead Sea and “Judaea and Samaria” were obscured by a thick haze which we’re told had blanketed the area for the past several days

Petra and particularly its famous and much photographed Treasury, is a stunning place and rightly deserves to be considered as one of the “new Wonders of the World”. The ancient city, built by the Nabataeans in the 4th or 5th Century BC became a major regional trading hub. The Nabataeans were able to create this city carved out of the mountains in the middle of the desert because of their ability to control and harvest water flow (the canyons are prone to flash flooding) and their skills with agriculture and stone carving.

Access to the ancient city itself from the modern town of Petra is carefully controlled and not for the faint of heart or weak of limb! It’s a two mile walk from the entrance gate, along Wadi Musa and through a narrow canyon passageway (the Siq) to reach the Treasury itself and another two miles or more to reach the end of the old city. Other than the section through the Siq (around a mile long) there’s very little shade and the path is rock strewn and mostly uneven. Along the entire route are vendors selling everything from tourist souvenirs, to refreshments of one sort or another (one was even selling McVitie’s digestive biscuits!). Donkey “taxis” are available for those who really can’t make the trek on foot and even a few horse-drawn carriages which seemed to be popular on the morning we’re visiting among a large group of Filipino tourists!

Petra by Night

On three nights each week, an event described as “Petra by Night” is staged. We considered ourselves lucky to be in Petra on one of those nights and we looked forward to what we though would be a spectacular “son et lumiere” at the Treasury. Even though we’d already walked some 12 miles or so that day in the blistering heat to see Petra-by-day, we were up to another four mile round trip hike in the dark to the Treasury and back. Our guide has told us that they only sold a limited number of tickets for the evening “spectacular” - he mentioned the number of 300 - and we should make sure we get to the gate early, which we duly did. Three hundred turned out to be more like three thousand and there was a veritable stampede down the Wadi Musa and Siq (lit up by candles in brown paper bags every few yards) to get the best spots in front of the Treasury!

And what a disappointment it turned out to be! The area in front of the Treasury, also lit only by a few candles in brown paper bags, had a few mats on the ground for the first in to sit on. We were “lucky” enough to get a mat, but it was too dark to see how everyone else was making out!

The “show” started promptly at 9pm - one individual who we couldn’t see playing what sounded like a penny whistle not very well, followed by someone else playing a stringed instrument slightly better and last but not least, a man spouting something spiritual in heavily accented English (I think) which we could barely hear let alone understand. Then for a few minutes, the Treasury itself was lit up in several different colours which admittedly was quite spectacular.

And that was it! The “show” lasted 25 minutes if that and ended when someone says “thank you all for coming and mind how you go on the way out....

As we start the trek out again, we hear a woman with a fine clipped English accent remarking that the highlight of the evening had been when one of the candle-holding brown paper bags had caught fire....