Petra

Well that just happened.  Almost three months passed without an update and now all of you have probably forgotten about us out here in Jerusalem.  But!  We're still here and have so much to share with you now that we have had two visitors and have been forced to become tourists again.  The months of January and February (until Mckenzie arrived) were pretty uneventful, with Eric returning to his full time school schedule and me babysitting more, but I think we made up for this lack of activity throughout the past month.  I have now: Seen the Dome of the Rock three times, been to the Dead Sea and Masada three times, walked through Petra, been to Bethlehem, enjoyed many sunny afternoons in Tel Aviv, eaten lots and lots of falafel and hummus, and traveled to the northern end of the country.  Eric joins in on adventures when school allows, but it has been so fun to have McKenzie (my sister) and Theresa (my dear friend from Seattle) here to spend the days with me.  Their excitement about all of the sights really reminded me how lucky we are to be here and sharing this incredible experience.  My time abroad is actually drawing to a close, as I am headed home on April 25th to be closer to my family as wedding planning kicks into full gear.  As you can imagine, I am both extremely excited and incredibly sad to be leaving this place, but ultimately I think I have done what I needed/wanted to do here and am ready to head back.  For now, though, let's keep talking about Israel!

While Mckenzie was visiting, we took a trip to Eilat (which is at the southern tip of Israel and borders Egypt and Jordan) and Petra.  Eilat has a border crossing into Jordan just a few minutes outside of the main town, so we were easily able to arrange a tour to get us across the border and into Petra.  Some of you may know Petra from Indiana Jones, as he ends up there on his search for the ancient crescent city in The Last Crusade.  The city was built in the 3rd century BCE and magnificent structures are carved directly into the rock.  People inhabited the city until 555 CE, when it is believed that a massive earthquake made living there impossible.  Today, the Bedouin people still live in the surrounding area and offer camel rides, jewelry, and other crafts in little marketplaces throughout Petra.

We started our tour at 7am, when our tour jeep picked us up in Eilat and brought us to the border crossing.  We had to walk from Israel to the Jordan border and then we were able to board a bus and start the 2 hour journey to Petra.  Our tour guide was a local Jordanian man, named Mohammed, who was super friendly and excited about helping people realize that Jordan is happy to have tourists and is not a dangerous place.  I remember him talking about how devastated their economy was because people hear about the turmoil in the Middle East and automatically assume that all the countries in that area will resemble the chaos they see on the news.  We really did have a great experience with everyone we interacted with, although I'll admit that we only visited touristy places.  Anyway, we made it to Petra by mid-morning and toured until we were all starving at 4:00pm.  After a buffet lunch, the bus took us back to Eilat and we headed back to Jerusalem the next afternoon.

 Viewpoint looking over the town of Petra.

 

 We began by walking to the "Souq" (or market) street, which is the main entrance to Petra, and we were greeted by lots of men offering horseback and carriage rides. 

 

Right before entering the Souq street there is a little shop selling all kinds of scarves, jewelry, and aromatics.  This is also where President Obama stopped for souvenirs on his trip to Petra, and the shop owner will gladly you show you pictures to prove it.  McKenzie was lucky enough to take some amber and myrrh home with her.

The first part of the walk through this ancient city is lined by towering rocks on either side.  The rock was beautiful and had all sorts of marks showing how it had been worn down over the coarse of history.  You walk and walk through this narrow walkway and it is breathtaking, but there are only minor signs of carving in the rock.  Gutters line the walkway designed to catch and take all the water through the canyon to the residents that used to live in Petra.  Right before we turned a corner, our tour guide gave us instructions to stay to the far right side of the path to avoid carriages coming quickly around the bend.  Once we made it around the curve, he asked us to tell him his eye color, so everyone was focused on trying to get close enough to see what it might be.  I had no idea what was going on and was thoroughly confused as to why his eye color might matter to any of us, but then I looked straight ahead and realized why he was trying to divert our attention: He wanted the view you see in the photo below to be a complete surprise.  Well done, tour guide :)

This structure is the one you see in the Indiana Jones movie and is called the Treasury.  The detail in the carving was so intricate and amazing, it almost did not seem real.  This was definitely the highlight of the trip.

 

 A local artisan demonstrating how he makes his sand art.  You can sort of make out the tiny camel coming together in the jar.

 McKenzie getting her shot, per usual :)

 Eric and Mckenzie in front of the amphitheater.

 The rock had these amazing patterns, with different colors layered throughout.

 

These beautifully carved structures were used as tombs.  The more intricate the carving, the more wealthy the family was, with poorer families just having holes in the walls for tombs.

 

This is by far my favorite picture and it was taken by McKenzie.  This Bedouin man looks serene here, but he was actually calling out that it was happy hour on all scarves.  He also had a pet turtle hanging out in a box next to all his stuff.

 As I mentioned, some Bedouin people still live in the surrounding area, but I am not sure that they are actually allowed to live in Petra itself.  These structures could just be their spot to escape the heat during the day while they are selling crafts.

We ended the day with a drive back to the border and this gorgeous sunset over the Jordan mountains.  We all had such an amazing time and feel so lucky to have checked this place off our list of places to see.  If you are ever in Israel, try to make time to see Petra, as it really is unlike anything else!

Thanks for sticking with us and reading our updates.  I have some more photo-heavy posts lined up for this week, so stay tuned.

xo. E+D