Any time spent in the
magical Lost City of Petra always leaves me wanting more. The main landmark
sights, like the iconic Treasury, the Ancient Theatre and the Royal Tombs are
stunning enough, but there’s so much more to this amazing site than that.
On a day trip from
Aqaba, you spend 2 and a bit hours to get there, then of course you have that
atmospheric walk down the Siq (the canyon) to get your first stunning views of
the Treasury – and, for a lot of people, that’s about enough. The walk is
tiring, the ground uneven, and seeing the Treasury is sometimes enough to “tick
the box” for that quintessential Petra view.
But, for me, I’m
always desperate to see more – it’s just a case of how much time you have and
how far you can go, before you have to turn around and re-trace your steps.
Luckily enough, our group this time was quite a speedy one and our guide was
quite economical with his words, so on getting to the Treasury, we were given 2
hours of free time.
So, I had to calculate
how far I could go in that time. My goal was to get up to see the Monastery,
which is at the far end of the site, and up over 800 steps up into the steep
hills behind the main ruins. Our guide said I should calculate on 45 minutes to
get to the trail, and 1 hour to get up – which obviously wouldn’t be enough
time, but I reckoned I could do it in half that time if I was fast.
Fortunately, it had
rained the day before in Petra (a rare occurrence in these arid landscapes), so
it was a bit cooler for my march through the sand to the start of the trail up
to the monastery. At this point, I decided that I needed to run up the steps if
I was going to have any chance of making it up there.
I was like a man
possessed as I bounded up the steps, (some of them worn by the millennia into
little better than rough slopes), and I zoomed past the other
monastery-climbers. I think that my puffing and panting and slipping and
sliding must have scared a few of them taking a more leisurely climb, as I loomed
up on them like an asthmatic mountain goat. As I rounded every corner I
expected to see the Monastery there waiting for me; however, as fatigue was
setting in, eventually, a kind stall holder told me that I was 2 minutes away,
so I began to relax, and then I got my first breathtaking view of the Monastery
to put a spring back into my weary steps. It had taken me 19 lung-bursting
minutes.
In some ways, the
Monastery is more impressive than the Treasury – it’s less ornate, but it’s
bigger, and it’s more obviously part of the rock face. Plus, the other good
thing is that the hundreds (possibly thousands) of tourists and vendors who
throng the Treasury, turning it into a bit of a noisy zoo, will never make it
up here, so you feel like you’ve got this place to yourself. If I hadn’t now been
plastered in sweat and weak from my run, it would have been a totally magical
experience, savouring a view that feels like it’s one of the Holy Grails of
travelling.
I gave myself 5
minutes to drink in the view (and more importantly get my breath back), and
then it was time to run back down again, in a journey that wasn’t really any
quicker because I kept slipping on the sandy rocks.
Somehow I got back at
the appointed hour for lunch, and I have to say that the cold beer back at the
lunch venue has rarely tasted better after this exertion. Sometimes a good
day’s sightseeing can be a combination of workout and ancient wonders. Another
wonderful day.
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