Exploring the beauty and history of Petra

We started off the day by getting horses and riding them to the Siq, which is a deep narrow valley. The horse that I was riding was named sunset who was light brown. The Siq was formed by the shifting of tectonic plates splitting a mountain. The Siq grew over time as the flash floods and water erosion smoothed and widened it. It is 1.2 km long and there used to be an archway created by the Nabataeans who were a wealthy tribe in Jordan that built most of Petra thousands of years ago. Unfortunately the archway fell in 1895 and the remains were cleared so no evidence is left of it.

The Siq was beautiful, the sandstone walls towered above us casting a huge shadow. The sandstone walls had orange, brown and yellow coloring, I felt very small compared to the 547 feet cliffs. The Siq has been forming over millions of years because it keeps eroding and getting bigger but it started forming approximately 2 million years ago before the Nabataeans arrived. On either side of the Siq there is remains of a water drainage system . My mom took a golf cart most of the way through Petra because she was in too much pain to walk but she met up with us a few times.

At the end of the Siq we got a magnificent view of the Treasury where we got lots of amazing photos and where our mom was waiting for us. My dad was very exited because he had been dreaming of going to Petra most of his life. The Treasury does not actually have treasure, it is thought that it is a royal tomb but no one noes for sure. It is known as the Treasury based on a legend the Nabataeans used to tell about a Pharoh who had hidden his treasure in the top of the urn. People used to shoot the urn with a gun in attempt to retrieve treasure so now there are bullet marks around the urn. In reality the urn is no more than a solid stone with no treasure, the inside of the building is completely empty. Recent discovery’s have found 3 graves of past royalty underneath the Treasury.

While we were in the area we got to ride a camel for a few photos in front of the Treasury. I was a little nervous that I would fall off plus this camel was really tall so she was very unsteady but it was still fun. Then we rested while our dad ran up to a view point, unfortunately we did not see him.

Next we went to the Street of Facades, which is a street where people used to live. These were small houses because the people who owned them did not have lots of money. When the owners of the houses died, their houses became their tomb and the entrance of their house would be sealed off. All of the facades had pretty engravings along the top, some had pyramids engraved while others had triangles. I was wondering how some people got to their homes because some of the houses were higher up and there were no stairs. I guessed that there used to be stairs but that they faded over time because I don’t know how else they would get up there.

Petra was very beautiful, I was very amazed that people could create such intricate things without the tools we have now. It would have taken hundred of years to complete some of the bigger buildings and lots of patience.