Days 24 & 25: The country of Jordan and the Adventure in Petra

So I have not been able to blog for the past few days, but since I have been here for a while, it seems to be a good idea to blog maybe every 3 days since what we have been doing has been more routine.  However, the last two days have been incredible and so I wanted to blog right away before I forgot. 

First of all, Dr. Paul Jones of Transylvania University, who is here for a month, organized the trip of 2 days.  We took a shuttle through the border into Jordan (which took about 2 hours of driving) and then we drove South for about 2 hours to get to the city of Petra.  We drove through Amman, Jerash, and then arrived in Petra.

In Jerash, you find some of the most beautiful remains of a Roman city.  There are hundreds of columns left, with stone streets, and a beautiful theater.  The remains are fantastic, especially if you like archeology.  Now, Jordan is a country of about 7 million people, so it isn't overly large, but it still takes a while to get to different cities. 

We arrived in Petra Friday evening (we left at 8:30 am that day and arrived at the Hotel at around 9pm).  We were very tired since not only did we stop to see some sites, but we also drove all day long.
Petra is particularly famous because of the Indian Jones movie but more importantly because the Naboteens, who inhabited that area, carved an entire city into the sandstone walls of the canyons.  It's hard to describe what's there.  The canyons were formed much the same way that the Grand Canyon was formed, by water, and the colors in the canyon are red, blue, purple, yellow, but mostly a beautiful red & rose hue that is quite stunning.

We took a 4  hour tour that including riding on donkeys, riding on a camel, and seeing the beautiful sites of the canyon.  The city is no longer inhabited, but they believed it was made perhaps around 4 BC.  What is most beautiful about the whole thing is the size of the carvings, and the fact that the people carved the cities and tombs into the rock in such a way that it protected it from the water.  In other words, the carvings are at least 10 to 15 ft. into the rock.  The most famous carving is the "Treasury" that you see here, and you can imagine how huge it is compared with me at the bottom of the picture.  I do want to say this about the whole site, it gets very hot in the later part of day, but in the early morning when we go there, it was quite beautiful especially because of the rosy colors of the stone.  The whole place looked like it was one big sunset.  The entire site, is a park that would take at least 2 days to see completely and we only had 4 hours, so we saw what most tourists go and see.

We stay until around 12:30pm, and then we had a very quick lunch and had to take the bus back to the border 6 hours north of where we were.  This gave us plenty of time to see Jordan by car, to see the Dead Sea on the Jordan side, to see a few other beautiful panoramas, and to see also a bit of the daily life.  Please look at my pictures and enjoy some of the beautiful things that I was able to see.

Thank you for seeing my blog, God bless you!