Archives for May 2008
Petra
Petra is a magical place. Of all the world’s heritage sites I’ve visited* it’s the one that offers the most immersive, expansive yet human experience, a trip through time and space.
A walk down the Siq, a narrow, winding cliff-lined crack that takes visitors through the mountains gives a sense of entering a different world, another planet. 1,200 metres later we have emerged upon an early Star Trek set, a parched land of red dust peppered with the cave-like homes of an alien race. But what group could have built something as classically grand, ornate and majestic as The Treasury? Not built, in fact, but carved from a sheer rockface almost two thousand years ago.
More after this photo bonanza – see them clearly at Flickr, too:
My only reaction after a final turn of the path is “wow; wow”, an inarticulate summing up of the majesty of the view. It’s just as I’d remembered from Indiana Jones, only bigger and better. This is but the start of several miles of potential exploration, down the street of facades, through the city centre and up to the monastery a good two hours’ walk away.
When looking at these pictures, remember this: every surface in the city was carved from a rockface. By hand. It was a city built through reduction, not construction.
I’ve left plenty behind for my next visit as I’ll be here again some time, hopefully when the light is warmer and the crowds less dense. I cannot over-recommend a trip here, for in this land that was “the cradle of civilisation”, Petra is the first-born and strongest. Keep your pyramids, ampitheatres and temples. This is everything Disneyworld’s Forgotten Land wants to be – and it’s real.
*(62 out of 851 at the last count, folks)
I may have overdone the fake tan
A test upload live from the Dead Sea, Jordan.
