The Petran

The more observant of my regular readers may have noticed that I have started doing big travel blogs on the weekend - primarily because my life is currently so exciting I have hours to spend scanning the films, editing shots, and writing a whole lot of crap to make a (hopefully) vaguely interesting story to go alongside the (hopefully) vaguely interesting photos. Don'’t fret, only thirty four countries to go. And here's another one.

A couple of weeks back a friend forced me -– no shit, forced me; broke into my house, pointed a loaded gun at my head and forced me - to enter a competition so she could win stuff. (I haven'’t heard anything back so I'’m assuming she didn'’t win.) Anyway from what she told me the prize was a book about some woman who lived at Petra. Before the archaeologists and other such do-gooders moved in, kicked the locals out and declared it a World Heritage Site or something.

The upshot being that here is my rant about Jordan. Petra is the main reason anybody would want to go to Jordan. And everybody should want to go to Petra.

For us, our point of entry was from Syria somewhere, and the first shot I have of Jordan is this one of some fella 'swimming' in the Dead Sea. As the fella is apparently me I'll guess that I didn't take the photo.
We headed south to Amman, the capital, along the Kings Highway. Here's a view from somewhere along the Kings Highway.

Amman was a stunning city. We spent about um ... an hour there. Mainly driving around trying to find a supermarket. We also found a big public demonstration about something. What I saw of Amman made me want to stay longer, but mainly because it appeared to be a big horribly soulless bureaucracy. Anyway on to Petra.

Here's the Raiders Of The Lost Ark shot. The entry to Petra.


What you see through the gorge is The Treasury. It's a stunning piece of Art carved into a rock wall - rooms over two levels, facade, everything.

Isn't that the most gorgeous site you've ever seen?! OK maybe you had to be there. It's not often that I am just blown away by a location, cos I'm such an unemotional cynic, and even rarer that a level of 'Wow' is sustained for a day. Petra is that place. Here's some other piece of work by someone who clearly had too much time on their hands.


Petra is actually a city, and the site is huge. From memory the public access area is only a fraction of the entire site. Naturally as buildings are being carved into cliff faces and hillsides, Petra is a place if hills and valleys. Consequently exploring requires lots of walking, and lots of walking up and down hills. Here's a view from one of those hills, looking down on the Royal Area. You should be able to make out bits of architectural structures.

The Renaissance Tomb.

And lastly from Petra, two shots of the Monastery. Go here for more information on Petra.


Sadly we only had a day on Petra. From memory you could buy a 1 day or a 3 day pass. I can't remember how much it was, and while it was pricey it was some of the best money I've ever spent.

From Petra, we kept going south to the beautiful desert of Wadi Rum - a place to get well and truly lost in (and not neceassarily in a good way).
That was most probably the sand dune I buried my then newly purchased 20-35mm lens in. Oddly enough it hasn't been the same since. Below is a land bridge. Parts of Lawrence Of Arabia were shot around here somewhere too.


Finally, here's a shot from about 6.30am. In the centre in the shadow you can make out our camp. It was probably a 20min walk. This place is huge and the scale is very deceiving. But it was fun, and added further proof that I really like deserts.
After Wadi Rum, we went to Aqaba, a coastal resort on the Red Sea. It was quiet and relaxing and apparently I didn't take any photos. From there we broke into Egypt. But that's another story.