Now, if you’ve read previous accounts of when we’ve taken excursions with the word “hike” in them then you’ll know that we are absolutely awful when it comes to hiking. Neither of us is fit and my wife has old injuries that make uneven and uphill surfaces particularly painful to traverse, but we are both determined when it comes to taking on experiences we may not get the chance to attempt in the future so, for us, despite knowing we would probably suffer during and after it, choosing this particular excursion in Petra was an easy decision.

One thing that’s worth noting up front about this excursion is that it did not include a stop for lunch which other excursions did; instead, a packed lunch was provided on the bus and to call it basic would be a stretch. If you brace yourself for a piece of fruit, a piece of cake, and a small bottle of water then you might be pleasantly surprised at any additional components. That said, there are places to buy food in Petra itself so if you’ve got some cash on you you’ll be fine. You’re not supposed to take any food in but we didn’t see any checks taking place.

Let’s get onto the excursion then. We were off the ship nice and early and onto our bus without much delay. With this excursion being a strenuous one there was only one bus needed to cater for the number of cruise passengers who’d elected to do it. We had the usual moment of worry when we saw what some of the other people on the bus were wearing. It had been recommended that you wear multiple layers because it could apparently get cold in the higher altitudes we’d be reaching, for instance, and many were doing just that with t-shirts and shirts and light coats and walking sticks and belts and packs and hats and glasses on cords. My wife and I were in t-shirts, her with some leggings, me with shorts, and we each had one large bottle of water. It is possible that at other times of the year those layers everyone else was wearing would make sense but what we had turned out to be perfectly adequate and we saw some people make the decision to leave some of their layers on the bus at Petra when they realised that it probably wasn’t going to be quite as chilly as we’d been warned too.

The drive from Aqaba to Petra involves a security check when leaving Aqaba on account of it having a special economic zone status that means certain things aren’t taxed there. That is to help with imports, of course, but does make it a point where smuggling can occur as our guide explained. The drive heads north and starts ascending soon after and the landscape is barren, rugged, but really quite beautiful. The journey took around two hours and while we’d been told there would be a stop on the way there wasn’t and nobody was bothered by this.

From where the bus parked there was a short walk of a couple of minutes across a road, down a sloping area, and into the Visitors Centre. This was a large, circular space lined with souvenir shops and some information boards plus toilets for those who wanted to use them. We waited until all those who’d wanted to had done so.

Just before we made our way to the ticket area we were grouped in front of a map of Petra where we received a little bit more information about just what we’d be doing on this excursion. If you view the full size image below you’ll be able to see that the entrance where we were standing is on the right side of the map, the Treasury that everyone knows Petra for and where this first travelogue post will finish is low down and near the centre of the map, and our final destination of the Monastery is in the top left corner.

As with everyone else in our group we ignored the option of riding a horse or donkey down the main route which was included as part of the ticket entrance cost. We would also be ignoring the option to pay for a ride up the hiking trail too. We didn’t see any of the animals being mistreated – the occasional slap on the rump, perhaps, to guide them from their handlers – and there were signs asking people to report any instances of cruelty but the whole tourist-riding-an-animal thing simply doesn’t sit well with us.

One of the first sights along the walk from the vistors centre to the entrance to the Siq, the narrow gorge that takes people to the Treasury at Petra, were the Djinn Blocks. It’s from djinn that we get our word genie and the purpose of the blocks is unknown for certain although their presence close to tombs may indicate a funerary connection. Should you find yourself in possession of three wishes following a lamp-rubbing incident perhaps you can find out.

Opposite the Djinn Blocks were a couple of important tombs, the most visually-appealing of which was the Obelisk Tomb even though the relief designs on the front were actually nefashot. The four columns likely represent the four people buried in the the chambers within.

The walk from the visitors centre to the entrance to the Siq was about a kilometre and was gently downhill for the most part. The walk through the Siq was also gently downhill and if you’ve got a keen sense of how directions work you’ll have realised by now that this means the return walk was uphill for its entirety, and while that slope is fairly gentle in appearance it turns out that a few kilometres of it constantly can be quite a strain on the calves. If you’re not used to that sort of walking then keep an eye on the clock and how long it takes you to get down to where you want to be in Petra because you’re going to want to add half that time back on for the return trek.

The entrance to the Siq was marked by locals dressed up as ancient Nabataean warriors. The Nabataean people were chiefly responsible for most of Petra’s functions and designs. Arabic in origin, the Nabataeans loosely controlled a series of trade routes in this region of the world for around 500 years from the fourth century BCE onwards, and Petra’s location and ability to be defended thanks to its walled gorges eventually saw it become their capital.

When people think of Petra they’re most likely thinking of the sight of the Treasury and also the walk through the Siq that leads to it. Literally meaning shaft, the Siq is a little over a kilometre long and winds through the rock walls of the area which at points are only three metres apart and over ninety metres in height. This natural gorge is the result of a tectonic split later smoothed down with water erosion and you can expect to get neck ache walking through as your eyes will constantly be taking your head on journeys up those walls and across the natural and carved niches and occasionally shockingly-red colouring of the sandstone.

We stopped a couple of times on the walk through the Siq, mostly to make sure that everyone was keeping up. Our guide was very keen that we not dawdle as he wanted us to make the most of the time we had at Petra and he got no complaints from us in that respect. From the entrance to the Siq until seeing the Treasury the walk took us about twenty minutes.

Understandably, after twenty minutes of walking everyone began stopping of their accord whether they were part of our cruise excursion group, part of some other tourist group (of which there were many), or individual travellers; the reason, obviously, was that classic image of the Treasury seen through the western entrance of the Siq.

Its Arabic name is Al-Khazneh and the name was picked up because of the belief that there were treasures within. It was most likely just a mausoleum, though, as determined from the sculpted eagles which were thought to carry away the souls and by the images of Castor and Pollux, twins who lived partly in the underworld. The sculpting of the structure in the sandstone cliff would have taken place in the first century CE.

The Treasury was certainly impressive to see in person and it’s one of those places that benefits from having someone in front of it to truly get a sense of scale. The relief is forty metres in height. You can see this more clearly in the photo and video (temporarily removed) below.

The area in front of the Treasury was in almost total sunlight and the contrast with the shaded walk down the Siq to reach this part of Petra was intense. We managed a couple of minutes of photos of the surrounding sandstone before huddling in close to one of the walls where the sun couldn’t quite reach us. We had about fifteen minutes in this spot to allow people to take a look at some of the stalls offering souvenirs or coffee, the latter of which which didn’t appeal to us and the former of which we wanted to wait until after we’d completed our hike to the Monastery.

Naturally, this was a very popular spot for tourists with everyone either taking photos of the Treasury or posing in front of the structure. For many this would have been the main or indeed only thing they would have come to see. This was also a popular spot for hiring camels and donkey-led wagons either to head further into Petra or to head back through the Siq and avoid that uphill slog.

After our short time at the Treasury our guide called us together and led us off down the Street of Facades.

In the second part of this travelogue series covering our visit to Petra I’ll take us past the parts of Petra that sprang up during its period of absorption into the Roman empire all the way to Ad-Deir, the Monastery, ahead of the final part recounting our return hike all the way back and a surprising and very welcome discovery in the Rose Red City.

The Street of Facades is a wide area beyond the Treasury with numerous Nabataean tombs and Nabataean decorations on them in their typically grand scale. The placing of tombs doesn’t reflect the age of when they were constructed or any real significance with the person entombed as the tombs were simply produced in the most suitable sandstone spots at the time.

A lot of the damage on the tombs is natural so possibly the most distinctive of those in this part of Petra was the Aneisho Tomb which seemed to be standing separately and withstanding the assault of time better than others around. The tomb includes features in Greek and Egyptian styles, was built for the minister of Queen Nabatiyeh Shaqilh II, and its interior is split over two levels and covers around four hundred square metres in area.

Carrying on our walk we next came to the Theatre. Built early in the first century CE like most of the more impressive architectural feats in Petra and later modified during Roman rule, this was nevertheless a distinctly Nabataean theatre on account of it being carved out of the surrounding sandstone rather than constructed independently in the Greek or Roman manner. Its location was picked to have the best view of most of the more impressive tombs leading up to it and its capacity is estimated at around eight and half thousand people. A couple of days after our visit to Petra we would visit Chester which also has ruins of an ancient theatre and I can assure you that the one at Petra is a smidge more impressive. Maybe even a tad more than a smidge.

A little further along from the theatre was a place to stop and simply admire the views for a while as those who needed to use the toilets could do so at a spot in front of the Royal Tombs where a number of shops and stalls were set up. The tombs looked particularly impressive and if we return to Petra at some point then I’d certainly like to explore them but on this trip we were too limited for time.

The main walking trail in Petra then curved to the west and took us down the Colonnaded Street. This would have been the main shopping street in the city with a large market area to the south. The street includes drainage channels under its curved shape to remove excess water from rains and while it was originally Nabataean it had clearly been improved upon and rebuilt during the period under which Petra was ruled from Rome.

The Colonnaded Street took us to a structure that didn’t look that impressive but which was the Temple of Qasr Al-Bint, one of the most intact buildings in Petra and still standing at its full height despite seismic activity in the area. From the perspective of our excursion, though, this was an important location that indicated the last bit of flat ground we’d have for a while as it also signified we had reached the start of our hiking trail.

And so, with a final gathering together and some words of encouragement from our guide – “This will be hard work and I will push you to get you up as quickly as possible. Please let me know if you feel ill at any point” – (okay, not exactly words of encouragement) we started our hike to the Monastery.

If you read about it ahead of time, even if you read it here, then you know that the Ad-Deir Trail (the hiking trail to the Monastery) consists of approximately eight hundred steps. But that doesn’t mean you’ll take eight hundred steps to ascend because there are long, sloping sections in between the steps. And that doesn’t account for the fact that some of those steps are steps in the loosest definition possible. And the steps are covered in sand and stones in places. And they’re different heights and angles. And some areas have sheer drops near them. And donkeys thunder past every couple of minutes. And donkeys are wider than you realise. And donkeys don’t care about you.

It is, in short, not an easy hike, and if you’re the wife of someone writing this who just happens to have old injuries to her ankle and knee to contend with plus a fear of any unstable surface under her (edge of a cliff: fine; stand on a foot stool: palpitations) then it’s a horrible hike. I very quickly saw that my wife was experiencing a panic attack on the ascent and I think it was pretty obvious to most of our tour group that she was struggling too. In fact, at one point heading up we passed a French group coming down and one woman in there approached us to say there wasn’t much further to go and we could do it so it was even obvious to kind but complete strangers passing fleetingly. Of course I offered to stop the hike because that’s what a caring husband does but I also only offered once because that’s what a caring husband who receives the Glare of Impending Homicide If You Ask That Question Again does.

Our guide was true to his word and kept urging us all on but we did stop three times briefly up the enclosed trail to rehydrate. Out of necessity because of the time we’d arrived and would need to depart we were probably hiking up the trail at the worst time of day with long sections in full sunlight so it was hot, but probably because of the time of year not terribly so; it was considerably hotter when we’d hiked in Nicaragua earlier in the year, for example. Even still, we were very glad to have packed some wet wipes with us as their cool dampness helped to bring down our temperatures quite nicely during those moments of respite on the climb.

And so I shall let the pictures do the talking for the hike up the trail to the Monastery at Petra now. You’ll see how there are sections of flattish ground between the steps and see how the trail zig-zags back on itself in places. You will also be able to get a feel for the narrowness of the trail and height of the surrounding walls of sandstone at parts along the hike as we made our way to the summit.

From the start of the hike to reaching the plateau at the end took us just under an hour. What greeted us was definitely worth the trek.

Despite its name, the Monastery was most likely a temple or tomb (those Nabataeans really liked their tombs) to a king, Obadas, who was later deified. The fantastic facade is fifty metres wide and almost as tall. If you’re visiting Petra and you think you can do it then the hike to the Monastery is highly recommended by us.

The wide plateau in front of the Monastery was artificially created by the Nabataeans for social and ritualistic gatherings and in more recent times, as you’ll see from the video above, rest facilities have been established. After a short gawp at the Monastery we headed to the café to get some more water as we’d almost depleted everything we’d brought with us on the hike. Other people were eating as they – as well as cats and dogs – were sheltering in the seated section of the cave adjoining the café but we were content to just get some liquid inside us.

It didn’t take me long to recover but I wasn’t fighting an hour’s worth of panic-attack-induced adrenalin coursing through my system so I left my wife to rest a little longer while I took a walk around the area for some more photos. Behind the café was a raised area of ground affording better views of the impressive Petra building and which included some rock mounds with hollowed out rooms and windows carved into them. There was also an area up another set of steps that claimed to offer a fabulous view to the west over the Jordanian landscape but I wasn’t sure if I’d have the time to make it up and back without my wife worrying so satisfied myself with some pictures of the people and sights more close by.

When we checked the time we realised that we had plenty of it left. We have to thank our guide for that because his constant pushing for us to complete the hike meant we could really relax if we wanted from this point on. We could probably have stayed around the Monastery for another forty five minutes if we’d really wanted before starting on the way back but we decided we’d make our return ahead of everyone else in order to be able to take our time going down – those fears of my wife and her issues with the uneven terrain would return just as much on the way down as on the way up – and potentially explore some of the areas we’d passed on the walk through Petra to the hiking trail.

It would transpire that something would distract us from exploring more of Petra’s ruins on this visit. Something wonderful. You can find out what that was in the final part of this travelogue series covering our cruise excursion to Petra which takes us from the Monastery back down to ground level and out of the fabulous Jordanian city.

You might recollect from our hike up to the Monastery that the path involved in the region of eight hundred steps and that these were uneven, angled, different heights and widths, sometimes near sheer drops, covered in loose stones and sand, interspersed with stretches of unstepped pathway, and frequented by donkeys clip-clop-thundering past every couple of minutes. All of this was true on the way down too because these weren’t your Harry Potter-style steps that transform when you’re not looking. You might think that descending the hiking trail from the Monastery to ground level in Petra would be considerably easier than the initial climb but it would be more accurate to say it was simply different. For me, yes, an easier task because going down is always easier than going up. Please take your filthy mind out of the gutter. For my wife and her historical injuries to ankles the descent was as bad as the ascent because the slope on many of the steps put a lot of pressure on sore points. Not only that but her shoes – proper hiking shoes – seemed to have more trouble keeping a good grip on the sand-covered sandstone. And, of course, a fear of heights on uneven surfaces is a fear of heights on uneven surfaces no matter which way you’re facing. Progress was slow but that was why we’d elected to head off early. We’re semi-sensible like that sometimes.

Slow progress meant I could stop to take photos when I wasn’t stopping to help my wife down another scary part of the trail.

Where there are tourists there will be people trying to sell things to tourists and the hiking trail to and from the Monastery at Petra is no exception to this rule. You’ll find three or four spots along the route where a handful of tented stalls are erected, some selling drinks, many others offering souvenirs. One thing we particularly liked was that there was no hard sell from any of the stallholders; when we stopped and looked we were left in peace, no lifting of goods and proffering, no attempt to encourage a sale at all. This was a refreshing contrast to many other places we’ve visited on our travels over the years. Another thing we liked were cats because we saw quite a few in Petra. Only ginger ones, mind.

In the two photos below you can get some sense of how the Monastery hiking trail turns on itself, how the steps are, how the donkeys carry the tourists along the path, and the sort of drop along the route.

It was not far beyond this point on our return to the main part of Petra that my wife’s feet slipped out from under her on the sandy steps. Luckily, nowhere near an edge and not in any donkey droppings either. More importantly, the only bruising was to her ego and she wasn’t hurt at all. She also wasn’t the only person to fall that we witnessed with a least half a dozen tumbles seen going up and down.

The descent was taken even more slowly but with no major breaks to recover our breaths that we’d needed earlier in the day and with fewer stops to get some respite from the sun as it had moved around and was being blocked in many points by the sandstone walls we were passing, it took no more than around thirty five minutes to make our way to the base of the trail. And that’s with lots of photos along the way of rocky walls and narrow gorges, of course. I am me, after all.

The lower end of the Monastery trail brought more evidence of human activity in the sandstone walls with plenty of niches, caves in some instances, and carvings.

And thus it was that we completed our descent of the trail. More weird rock formations as we’d come to expect from Petra marked the point at which we’d reached level(ish) ground…

… but it had something else too.

At the base of the trail and identified as toilets on the map we’d looked at there were a few buildings and lots of seats outside. We both needed to use the loo thanks to the volume of water we’d put into ourselves not actually all being sweated out on the hike up and down the path so we made our way to them and made use of the facilities. A local was sat at the entrance to the toilets pointing men to one side and women to another but with toilets being the way they are all over the world this meant there was a queue for the ladies’ side. After I’d relieved the pressure inside and washed my hands I indicated to some women in the queue that there was nobody in the men’s side and there were a couple of cubicles in there. They shot past the guy telling people where to go who looked shocked at first but then quickly resigned to the fact that practicality was probably the priority.

My wife had already passed into the queue the other side of the door by this point so I had to wait for her to complete what she said was a snake around the inner walls of the toilet block which gave me time to look at the rest of the building we’d found. Amongst other things there was a café there (hence the seating outside) and attached to it a small shop where things could be ordered through the hatch. And one thing caught my eye: beer. A horrible assumption on my part was that Arabic countries are dry countries (where alcohol is concerned as well as just in general). Not the case at all.

There are many things we like doing when we travel and one of them is trying local drinks in countries we visit. When my wife emerged from the toilet I pointed at the beer and got an “Oh, hell yes!” look from her. We had plenty of time thanks to our guide’s forced march up to the Monastery which I’d initally thought might mean we could explore the Royal Tombs, perhaps, on our way out, but with so many other things to see that we could really do with a longer visit anyway the lure of beer won us over. We’re easily won over when it comes to beer.

The beer was not cheap and that’s coming from someone who’s bought drinks in Iceland and Hong Kong. We were behind a hiker who also enquired about the beer and quickly opted for water when he was told the price. For us, no problem at all. We grabbed the cans of cold lager – and we are not lager drinkers under normal circumstances – and found a seat in the shade of some trees where we both uttered deep aaaahs of contentment. So now we can say that we’ve drunk beer brewed in Jordan in the ancient city of Petra. That’s the sort of thing we live for.

We negotiated the chicane of resting camels and found ourselves back on the Colonnaded Street heading directly towards the Royal Tombs. My camera immediately attracted the attention of some French girls who assumed that lugging a great big DSLR around meant you must have an innate skill at using a stranger’s iPhone and mimed some gestures to get me to take their photo with it. I don’t like touching Apple products and I don’t like holding expensive equipment belonging to other people and I sure as hell wouldn’t trust anything I was carrying to people I didn’t know – I’m guessing they realised there was little chance I was going to run off with it – but I persevered and there’s a reasonable chance I got them in the shot I took.

I looked longingly at the Royal Tombs from afar and glanced at the time. My wife said she’d wait if I wanted to get up closer to them but I decided we’d stick together, take our time leaving Petra, and make sure that a return trip in the future would include a visit to them instead.

We followed the main route through Petra and next passed the Theatre which was now proving to be popular with goats and people wanting to take pictures of goats alike.

We retraced our steps past the tombs lining the Street of Facades next. There were plenty of souvenir stalls along this route and we stopped to take a look at some of them but didn’t see anything we fancied purchasing.

This brought us back to the building that this ancient site is most famous for, the Treasury. You can see some more photos of the building and read a little more about it in the first part of this subset of the Jordan travelogue series where we walked from the visitors centre to the Treasury at Petra. The area in front of the building was in shade now making it a far more pleasant time of the day to gaze up at the workmanship and take in the scale but we weren’t sure how long it would still take us to get back to the coach and so didn’t dawdle long.

Stepping into the Siq – the long gorge you pass through to get to the main parts of Petra – I turned back to take another shot of the Treasury through the narrow gap in the sandstone walls. A tip if you’re visiting Petra and want this classic (fine: clichéd) photograph is that the later afternoon period is better for it because there are fewer people around to get in the way (unless you want them for scale) and the light contrast between the inside rocky walls and the outside area where the Treasury can be seen is lower meaning there’s far less chance that your camera will overexpose or underexpose the picture.

Just the Siq to go and then the trail up to the visitors centre. Mostly flat from here.

Is it? Is it really? Because I seem to recall there was quite a slope heading down to here this morning.

Well, a hint of a slope perhaps. We’ll probably not even notice it.

We noticed the slope quite a lot as it turned out. It isn’t steep, it’s true, but it’s constant and it’s longer than you remember. However much time you take heading through the Siq to get to Petra’s impressive sights in the first place, add half that time again to head back. And after you exit the gorge the steepness increases. Prepare to be a little out of breath and just this side of completely knackered by the time you complete it.

One thing we noticed was that there seemed to be a lot more horse-drawn carts galloping past us on the exit from Petra. I suspect that people who’d been up for the walk earlier in the day were in more of an up for the terrorise pedestrians from the comfort of a seat mood as the afternoon headed towards evening. Luckily, horse-drawn carts aren’t quiet things and the walls of the gorge carry and echo hoofbeats well and even in the narrowest parts of the Siq we were able to get close enough to the wall to not be too threatened by the speeding vehicles.

The final bit of walking was in sunlight and as has already been mentioned a little bit steeper than the walk preceding it which meant I was called upon to take some tactical photo stops along the way. The Obelisk Tomb and Djinn Blocks were the most interesting of the features along this last bit of the route out of Petra and you can read a little more about them in part one of this series of posts too.

Amongst the souvenir shops around the vistors centre area we finally picked up a few purchases but still had money left over. Luckily, the two-hour bus ride back to the ship at dock in Aqaba included a stop at a store and we got rid of almost all the remaining Jordanian money we’d taken with us then. People who know us and who know how much we like soap will be unsurprised to learn that we came away with lots of soap.

Just before we reached the bus park I was taken in by the modern architecture of the Petra Museum and the gorgeous light conditions of the time of day. We didn’t quite have enough time to pop in and visit but if its interior is as nice as its exterior then I’d say it looks like it’s worth a visit if you’re there.

We weren’t the last people on the bus but we might have been the penultimate couple to arrive and only by a minute or two. As regular cruisers and regular partakers of excursions this was a pretty close to unique experience for us as we’re usually back with plenty of time to spare and invariably have to wait for stragglers to turn up late. That wasn’t the case here and possibly because everyone had sensibly allowed more time than they needed to get back from sightseeing, and our bus was able to leave ahead of schedule as a result.

It goes without saying that Petra is absolutely incredible. It is one of the most impressive places we have ever visited. If you’ve not been then you must go and there can be no argument about it. If you were to visit as part of a cruise excursion like us then I’d also recommend the hike to the Monastery that we did if you think you’re capable of it. It isn’t easy but it’s rewarding and it’s an experience you won’t regret.

In the final part of this Journey to Jordan Cruise travelogue series I’ll cover our last night and morning on Marella Discovery plus our experiences in the airport at Aqaba and on the flight back home. Well, not quite home.