Petra Red Rose City Excursion (£124 p person)
We boarded JETT coach No 12 and listened to Arabic music
piped through the onboard speakers while we awaited the arrival of the forty-one other passengers. The majority seem in poor health and struggled to climb
the few steps to board the coach. The coach curtains were thick, like household
curtains and the air conditioning was on at full blast. We clipped on our lap
belts and sipped water taking in the largely empty port.
As we pass through the town of Aqaba I see that it’s made up
of modern high-rise building and single-storey buildings, all with air-con
units hanging off the walls. The roads and roundabouts within the town are
beautifully landscaped. As we speed towards the mountains our guide explains
that Aqaba is a Special Economic Zone area and that VAT, normally 16%
elsewhere is only 5% in Aqaba. I suppose that’s why we have to stop at a police
security post that looks like a row of motorway toll booths spread across the
width of the road. Every vehicle is stopped and several are inspected. We get
waved through but it must feel like it’s a border post for the Jordanian people
to access what is, after all, a part of their own country.
We are now in very mountainous terrain and it looks like
they blasted their way through solid rock to cut a road out of Aqaba. Its early
morning and the temperature outside is already nudging 23 degrees. Little residential
housing can be seen and what there is, is merely corrugated roofs on small one-room houses with fenced-in animals, their nearby pens laid out on hard ground without
a blade of grass. In fact, there is little grass anywhere but there is plenty of
evidence of gigantic run-offs ready to deal with the rare but heavy downpours.
By 9:30 am the Jordanian guide has been speaking non-stop
for two hours on all things Jordanian and we are just seeking some quiet
moments. His English is highly accented and not unlike Peter Seller’s Inspector
Clouseau. For example, he points out the vast deserts that we pass but
unfortunately says “desserts” which ruins the moment somewhat.
It’s at this moment that the coach pulls into a shop /
toilet/ scenic view stop and the stay is approximately forty minutes. Inside
the one storey shop, the Jordanian women who man the counters are dressed in
robes, not yashmaks. If that illustrates a non-strict Muslim community they still
avoid eye contact with me. The shop is filled with nice souvenirs of the type
you can buy in any Middle Eastern shop with the certain knowledge that they will
just become dust collectors when you get home.
We are now back on the road and our guide continues to talk.
Outside the tarmac roads visibly crack in the intense heat and in spots the
ride is a bumpy one.
First, he says, came the railway tracks installed by the
Turks and then the road. The Turks wanted to maintain control but to reduce the
size of their army so with the railway tracks in place they could link their
fortresses to each other and move soldiers to wherever they needed them, fast.
The weakness in this plan was that the local Jordanians and the English could
damage the railway line and then draw the Turks out to investigate. Then they’d
ambush them or just starve the fortress defenders out.
Our guide tells us the ancient history of Petra and
constantly use the years “BCE” ie
312 BCE means 312 Before Common Era. While he talks the landscape we pass becomes increasingly
alien to us. We pass close to the area they shot the Hollywood hit science
fiction movie starring Brad Pitt called “The Martian”.
It’s now 10:10 am and
we are entering the narrow twisty street of the town of Petra. It has only existed
following the discovery of the Petra World Heritage site so it is literally on the ancient site's doorstep. Rather than going straight to the large bus depot behind
the famous site our bus stops outside the hotel where lunch will be served
after we return from the site. For now, it appears to be just a toilet stop and
familiarisation exercise. We are twenty minutes inside the hotel and nothing else
happens there except we have the first of many headcounts.
Now, we are walking in a narrow column along the broken
footpaths a distance of about 300 yards to the heritage site. Once there we
have, you’ve guessed it, another headcount, repeated several times over so
obviously we have lost someone.
In this forecourt, there are many tourist-related shops and
toilets and it’s proved too tempting for some of our number. I discover the
standard ticket into the Petra site is 70 dinar so the TUI ticket that covers
entry, transport and a meal doesn’t seem as excessive as first thought.
Eventually, we walk on down to the site entrance proper and during
that walk our guide makes frequent stops at the behest of shop owners. He relates
to us their splendid offers. Even a local child’s offering of a selection of
postcards for 1 dinar is translated and passed on to the by now fairly
impatient throng.
Now we stand aside as the ticket purchase queue grows and
our variable numbers are doing our guides head in. Finally, we click through the
entry style and some passengers break away. They can’t delay another minute and
off they go not to be seen for the hour or two.
Our guide now stops to outline our transport options. The walk into Petra and as far as the Treasury
building is about 12,000 steps on uneven and sandy ground and will take over an
hour to complete with the guide and similar period to complete the return
journey back to the hotel.
Not too far away I can see horses and donkeys corralled and
a steady flow of them to the entrance path. On the path ahead of us I can see
about twenty Arabic men and boys spread out across the offering rides to the
many tourists heading into Petra.
Apparently, our ticket into the Petra site includes the cost
of a donkey ride down to the Treasury. However, we must tip about 50 dinars at the journey's end and the transport is not covered by our insurance.
Alternatively, we can hire a camel or a golf buggy or horse and cart which are
considerably more expensive and sadly, also not covered by insurance.
Finally, at noon, we are on the move towards Petra and on
either side of the path there are huge red mountain rocks which part for just a
few metres to enable the uneven path to slip between them. Up in the rocks, we
see the first of many caves and sculpted building hewn out of the rock.
Petra Inhabitants now
Petra had inhabitants prior to the world heritage site
recognition by Unesco. Once it gained the recognition the Jordanian government ordered
all the inhabitants to evacuate so officially no one lives there. I say
officially as just at the rock entrance, to my right, up in the rocks by a cave
sat a group of bearded men, all wearing brown robes and alongside one of them was
what we Irish would call “a Bodhran”, a hand-beaten drum. They looked to me
like a group of holy men but our guide couldn’t confirm this to me. They sat
silently watching the throngs of tourists, animals and carriages pass hither
and thither.
We walk on between gigantic walls of rock that tower over us
from both sides of the path. I listen out for the clatter of hoof steps on the
stone paths and the frantic bell ringing that would warn me that a donkey with
carriage is approaching and to step off into the verge and let it pass. Often
the animals disappear hurtling around blind corners and it’s a miracle no one is
injured or knocked over. Later on in the walk, an ambulance did pass us heading
down into the site but it returned without a patient twenty minutes later.
Throughout the walk, vendors are set up just off the path
selling any amount of souvenirs and it must be quite boring sitting there in
the shade day in day out.
We strode on until we rounded a corner and our guide stopped
us and lined us up for this is the iconic photograph moment where the visitor
gets their first glimpse of the Treasury building through a sliver of a gap
between the huge rocks.
Once the picture is in the can you walk on through those
rocks to an open area the size of Oxford Circus where thousands mill about,
taking in the Treasury facade in all its splendour. Most of the building is
just that, a facade cut into the rock 300 BC but the ground floor is real and
can be entered, but not today. Soldiers sit watching vacantly in a row along a
metal barrier that blocks entrance to the building. There is room there for the
weary tourist to rest their feet. Camels similarly sit in the sand taking a
break while donkeys are tethered to a rock, in the shade. Getting to the
Treasury at about 1:00 pm is an ideal time as the sun is over the Treasury at
this time.
We opted to leave the tour and wander on down the valley and
path and only stopped when we reached the amphitheatre which I thought
originated during the Roman times but actually dates much further back in time.
Then on we pressed though now very conscious of time.
We made caught up with our tour group as the guide led them
up many steps of a ruined grand church and then into a Roman house where an
original fresco was still visible drawn on one of the walls. The earthquake on
19th May AD 363 destroyed over half the cities buildings and the
city fell victim to a series of earthquakes over the ensuing centuries. In
fact, only one building remains standing and that was a Roman one which
survived because of the nature of its construction. The Romans used wood in
between the rocks to spread the vibrations and this enabled the building to
remain standing.
A further eight kilometres of ruins lay before us, the
Arched Gate, the Winged Lion Temple, the Unfinished Tomb, the Conway Tower etc
but we had run out of time. In hindsight, the guide stopped far too frequently
and spoke for far too long.
It was 1:30 pm when we turned for home. We made steady
progress uphill and back to the entrance. We moved against the still steady
stream of incoming visitors. At the entrance forecourt, Miriam bartered for a
book on Petra knocking the asking price down from £25 to £13 and left the shop
owner curiously fingering and holding up one of the new English £10 notes. They
much prefer dinar or US Dollar in Petra but he took sterling when no
alternative remained.
We entered the hotel at 2:40 pm and were informed that the
coach was in the Bus Depot back at the Petra site and we had to make it there
by 3:10 pm as the coach was departing at 3:15 pm. What reassured us on arrival at
the hotel was the sight of our guide sat at the table eating. We thought we
were in good time and took seats at his table. No one else from the coach was
visible but after we arrived and sat down a stream of passengers turned up and
interrupted the guide as he ate. He probably should have told us all what the
arrangements were before we dismounted from the coach as he now had to repeat
his general vague directions many times. He never lost his composure and I
admired his patience in a situation that he himself had created.
Eventually,
when no one came to take our order the penny dropped that it was self-service.
Hastily we filled our plates from the row of food on offer. Only, at the guides
prompting, did I discover that there were also desserts to be had around the
corner from the row we’d fed from. As he departed he waved us to stay put and
eat our food. When I sought a drink to
go with the meal I was given a small bottle of water.
All very fine for him to say but I had to balance my hunger
with the certain knowledge that time was running out. Miriam was so stressed
about missing the coach she had the appetite of a small mouse and ate hardly at
all. To the amusement of the catering
staff, I ate at speed and then returned several times having left the table to
take another spoonful of the excellent dessert. At 3:05 pm I flew down the staircase
from the restaurant and through swivel doors out and onto the street.
One of our ship’s coaches, No 15 swept past me and then
another, the No 9 swiftly followed by No 8 and No 7. Only a minute later, with
us walking briskly in search of this Bus Depot, whose location we did not know
for sure of, the No 11 passed me bye. Miriam said to push on alone and so I did.
I
forked right at the Petra site and up the hill where I could see the roofs of a
hundred coaches parked up and with more leaving every moment. I broke into a
run and once at the depot discovered it was split it two with an upper and
lower level. I asked a lingering driver for the JETT Coaches No 12 and he
pointed me up a hundred steps to the upper section. There I ran from coach to
coach examining their front windscreen for the No 12. I found one but it wasn’t
a JETT coach and so returned to the lower level.
It was now 3:20 pm and the
scheduled departure time. All around me I heard coach engines gunning up and
being slipped into gear. I feverishly scanned the depot. I spotted someone I recognised! They were
walking away from a coach about fifty yards away. I ran towards them and could
now see the No 12 in the windscreen and the letters JETT Coaches along the side!
I waved Miriam to follow and she had now two further passengers trailing along
in her wake. By 3:30 pm we were safely on board and the coach was still in the
depot.
As the watch saw the minute move to 35 a very stressed
couple mounted the coach steps and slipped past us on down the aisle to their
seats. It turned out that they’d been sat on the No 12 all right, the Regent
Coaches No 12 in the upper bus parking area.
The return coach trip to the ship passed quietly. Our guide
had exhausted his English vocabulary and having spoken for over two hours going
to Petra and two hours going round it he gave his voice a rest. We had a
totally unnecessary stop for toilets and shopping at 5:00 pm and within forty
minutes we were back beside the ship.
Postscript:
The dress code for visiting Petra is officially
arms and knees covered by men and women but it was not being enforced on the
day we visited. In fact, a pretty petite blonde wearing a mini-dress, high
heels, dark sunglasses, makeup and a headscarf clambered up on many rocks and
boulders striking modelling poses for a waiting female photographer.
We finished the day with a bit of sunbat
