Israel Day 6 - PETRA!!!!

While Kelly and I were sleeping warm in our bed, most of our group was awakened bright and early because of the sound coming from the loud speakers on the mosques on either side of our hotel. "WAAAALLLLLAAAAHHHHHHH", that's how they say Allah for those of you who don't know :o) They do this 5 times a day for minutes at a time. On this particular morning, it went off at about 4:30. Something interesting we learned at Tel Megiddo is that a lot of the statues of Baal that archaelogy has uncovered are found to have a crescent moon with a star in the middle. Sound familiar? That piece of information definitely brought a lot to light as we heard the daily prayers from throughout Jordan.

Kelly and I woke up about 5:30 and walked outside to find our friend John climbing up the side of the hotel. It looked fun so I joined in.

It was an absolutely awesome place. So many beautiful pictures. Here is one of Kelly's favorites.

We got on the bus and started our trip through the town to the beginning of the canyon that leads to the famous city of Petra.

The first place you get to is the visitor's center. I started to think...."Is this really it? This is the place I have wanted to come visit since I was a little kid?" It is dirty and smelly and there are tons and tons of people there. As with everywhere else in the Middle East, there are people yelling "Five dollars for three bracelets!" trying to sell you everything and anything. It is amazing how many "antiquities" the locals try and sell you. Camels and donkeys are being beaten to try and go faster as they carry tourists from the visitor's center to the start of the siq (the canyon that leads to the city of Petra). It was really kind of sad but the beauty of what we were about to see definitely put us back in an awesome mood.

Well, after walking for about a mile and a half through a broad canyon, we got to the start of the siq. It was absolutley amazing! To see the Lord's handiwork in the rock faces and beautiful colors of the canyon made everything else that men had built almost pale in comparison. The siq went from about 6 or 7 feet across at certain spots to 20 or 30 feet across at other places. The siq was formed from a giant earthquake and then water run off helped carve out the current path. Flash floods used to be a huge problem. The light was just starting to reach into the siq which made for some amazing pictures. Kelly took over 600 pictures on this day so for most of them, you will just have to wait until we get the online album finished. Here are a couple of my favorites though. You can see the fog slowly ascending out of the siq with the sun hitting it just right. The pictures barely capture even a glimmer of the bright rose red that is in the rocks.

The Nabateans were amazing engineers and architects. All the buildings are carved with chisels and the corners are all completely square and plum. You can still see all the chisel marks. They also carved in a water system to move water through the siq to the city proper. Here are a bunch of pictures of that system:

As we walked through the siq, the shadows and colors almost beyond your imagination, we started to see the work of human hands. This area was first settled by the Edomites (descendants of Esau) and then the Nabateans came in. It was because of their religion that they began to carve temples into the cliffs that Petra is now famous for. In the 2nd century, Petra came under Roman rule which meant that much of the Roman architecture, such as the amphitheater, was built into Petra. It was during that Roman Rule that the Treasury Building was carved out. This is the famous facade that was in the last Indiana Jones movie. Here are some pictures with that building, starting with the first view out of the siq..... it took our breath away!

There were what seemed like a million people there but somehow, right before we left, we were able to get a picture of me by myself in front of the Treasury Building. Look at the size of the building!

We then walked through the city. This portion of the city was full of what would have been tombs and temples as well as the shopping district of the city and the amphitheater. We moved through pretty quickly in order to get to the monastery. The monastery was created about 2 BC as a temple to one of the gods that the Nabateans worshipped. It took about 3 miles to walk up the hill. The guide said it was 850 steps but that was stair steps, not foot steps. As we went, we heard the Bedouin nomads yelling out "Blue Light Special", "Happy Hour", to try and sell us their souvenirs. Lots of the Bedouins live in Petra and move all of their water, food, and products by mule. We walked up the trail and turned the corner to come up to the monastery and again, we were in awe at how awesome the building was...

We were able to climb up into the monastery to have our Bible study. Many believe that Petra is the place of refuge that God will send his people the Jews to during the tribulation (Revelation 12:6 Isaiah 16:1-5). Right before we started the study, Kelly made friends with a little girl that was selling bracelets. She paid her 3 dollars to take her picture. When we started the study, the little girl looked over Kelly's shoulder and said, "What book is that?" Kelly said, "It's the Bible, it talks about Jesus." She was our cute little buddy, especially after our friend Matt Sievers gave her some peanut M&Ms :o)

We finished up the study and had 45 minutes total to look around and then hike back down the mountain. Kel and I decided to run up to the lookout point opposite the monastery. From this point you can see the full mountain range on the back side of Petra that keeps it so secure. I decided to get as close to the edge as possible. Kelly was a little nervous as she took the picture :o)

We hiked back down to the main city area and met back up with our group. We broke into two groups. Some went with our guide to find out the historical value of the city and some of us left to go climb the ruins. The only way a person could live in this city was if they were a priest to one of the gods they worshipped, a business man, or a politician. It was truly the worldly high-life. We walked up to one of the other well known temples and took some fun pictures. Notice what a beautiful day the Lord blessed us with! In the pic on the bottom, Jim and Matt were having trouble holding up the building so I had to help out :o)

The room to the right of the pillars in the picture above had some amazing acoustics! We were able to sing some worship songs acapella. We caught a great picture of our friend Matt Sievers with his "Indiana Jones" hat on and yes, he brought that hat just for Petra :o)

Kel got a great picture of the ceiling. It shows a great cross section of the rock!

Sadly, more earthquakes and the loss of the frankincense trade (mainly due to Christianity not needing frankincense for religious services as most of the pagan religions did) meant that Petra would be abandoned and lost until the 1800s. By that point, the original level of the city was 12 feet deeper than what we see today and most of the city had to be unearthed.

We walked back out the siq and back to the visitor's center where Tad and I tried unsuccessfully to haggle with the local store owner for some books. Oh well... guess I am not a very good camel trader:o) We hopped on the bus and drove back across the border. After another half hour of intense questioning by the Israeli border patrol, we got back into Israel with a sigh of relief. We were now in Eilat and looked forward to our day of scuba diving in the Red Sea!