Friday, 8 February 2008

Petra - The Rose coloured city day II

Monday 17 December,




We got up at – the reasonably sane hour this morning of - 9:30am. We decided to head into Petra by another route - Petra has several points of access. The Siq is the most famous and extravagant. But there are others. The Nabateans devised some very clever water management systems; not only to bring water into Petra but also to divert flash flooding that occurs in the area at certain times of the year. We entered via one of these channels dug to divert flash-flooding. It was quite a clamber into the city but really good fun.
We emerged into the now mid-morning sunshine, again completely gob-smacked by the sublime contrast of sand against rainbow rock against azure sky. This area of Petra was virtually free of tourists. We wandered around for an huor exploring caves. Unfortunately these were either blackened from camp-fires, or smelled of urine [every cave in Petra has a aromatic ambience of donkey piss]. We then climbed high into the cliff face of one of the central rock formations protruding from the north-east valley and found an amazing spot to sit and take lunch. We sat on the very edge of a sheer cliff face and lorded over the Nabatean city - dining like royalty on Nutella, honey, bananas, biscuits, goat's cheese, and lafa bread. We were the kings and queen of the ancient world, and below us in the colonnaded area of the Roman street, the denizens milled around. Unfortunately one of the noble lords made his sandwich far too large and dripped honey on his regal hiking boot.

After lunch we wondered down into the valley and hiked the rest of the way into the main area of Petra, passing on the way the beautiful House of Dorotheos and thus coming passed the exquisitely carved Tomb of Sextus Florentinus. This place is so beautiful. Unfortunately, Lords and Ladies of Petra though we were, we were pretty fecked by that point in time. Luckily we had seen just about everywhere; well with a few notable exceptions, one of them being the High Place of Sacrifice. Note the high part of the place's title. High in this case being a quaint euphemism for 'on top of a fecking mountain'. Merryl decided to opt out of this excursion. She obviously had understood the 'high' reference far better than Marcus and I. We left her at a cafe in the valley and went for our last, and short stroll, in Petra.

... Marcus and I are sitting on the edge of a cliff. A big one. Below us, far far below us, infinitesimally small dots mill around along the street of facades and down into the valley of the tombs. I am still panting from the arduous climb up and up to reach the place of high sacrifice. The sun is setting on my left, over Umm Al-Beyyara The air is cool; cooling me down. Jebel Al-Khubtha stretches out in front of me and behind it Wadi Musa and then more Jebels and Wadis stretching away into the distance to the dead sea and the Levant. I am completely absorbed and captivated by this incredible landscape - on fire under the sunset. It was well worth the climb. Far below I catch sight of a lone dot working their way up the street of facades. I remember a statement from my long suffering psychophysics lecturer, Ron Burnes - that a human eye can detect a naked flame 50 miles away. I can't confirm it is Merryl - but I know it is her - a feeling that is not so un-reminiscent of Walt Whitman's Ämong The Multitude...
We took a very leisurely stroll back through the Sic - mainly due to exhaustion. We stopped in the Cave Bar to look for Merryl, who had gone on ahead to rest for a while. It was a bit sad to say good-bye to this place. I wish I could have spent longer hiking around the city itself. However we had a rough itinerary to stick to, and we had half a mind to take a tour into the occupied territories of Palestine. So we decided to head to Wad-Rum the next day. Besides, we had a pressing gastronomic appointment to keep that evening.

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