Insert Witty Title about Petra Here

I have been dragging my feet in terms of writing this new blog entry. I apologize. A lot has been going on, so it is hard to find time. Especially with such a nice rock to lean on....


Where am I in this photo? As some of you already known, it is Petra, "The Rose City"....a famous Nabataean ruin in Jordan. It is referred to in the Bible as Sela, and more importantly, has been in an Indian Jones movie as well as in the Transformers movie. I will not go into the history of Petra, because the lord created the Internet for that purpose. The main things you need to know are:

1. This city is over 1000 years old and is a World Heritage Sight. Thus making it the main source of tourism for Jordan.
2. It was lost to the western world until 1812 (Every Bedouin person in the area knew where it was, naturally)
3. They carved everything out of rock.
4. They had a sophisticated aqueduct system, in addition to being innovative in every way. Such as cultivating huge apple tree fields. In the middle of a desert. Apple trees, in a desert!
5. They spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus and his pals.
6. The Romans conquered this ancient civilization, like how they conquered most everything.
7. An earthquake destroyed a lot of the buildings that used to be there.
8. As a center of trade, this society was influenced in terms of religion by surrounding cultures
9. They made the best frankincense you have ever seen/smelt
10. Many Bedouin people will claim that they have lineage connecting them to these ancient peoples

Alright! I hear some of you snoozing there, so I will leave the rest of the research up to you. It was a bit of a sad trip, because people in this area are very poor and survive on tourism. But the tourism also inflicts a lot of damage on the sight. Plus, a lot of the animals there are not treated very well. Otherwise, I very much enjoyed myself, sans the sand in my shoes.

BUT ONWARD to the photos you are all dying to see. I am only picking a few. Please visit my Facebook album, located on the left side of the screen, because that is where the real action is at. You also will see pictures of a crusader fort that we saw as well.

This is a monastery. I climbed about an hour to get here.

This is from "Little Petra"-the industrial/trade center This is what is known as "a treasury". However, archaeologist now doubt that it was used for such. Rather, it is now considered a tomb. And indeed, I saw the tombs underneath. A spectacular view

Pretty cool right? I will sign off for now. I have a few adventures planned for this weekend, but we shall see what actually happens in terms of blogging. Maybe they won't be interesting.

Anything you want to hear about?

Salam,
Liz