Great Weekend in Petra

What a great ending to the week and weekend. On Thursday we signed our largest contract yet to date. Which definitely gave a boost to the project. Then I had gotten it arranged where we were invited by the Moovenpick Hotel in Petra. Which is about 3 hours south of Amman. To come and stay the night with them, and then get up and explore Petra the next day. It was an amazing drive south, where there was almost nothing but mountains of sand for several hours between the two cities, the sun set in the dessert was absolutely amazing!!! Petra is considered one of the top 50 destinations for travelers in the world by national geographic see the site http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/petra.html

They were expecting us as soon as we arrived and had our rooms ready an invited us to enjoy any of the restaurants on them, while they also made reservations at the spa for us later that night. We ended up having dinner at their buffet and it was a mix of traditional Arabic and international food. Pretty good overall compared to other 5 star hotels. We then made our way up to the top floor where they had a deck where they were having a bar b que and live music. We sat outside and had a few drinks and enjoyed the surroundings and the fireworks that were being shot off around the city for the different wedding celebrations that were going on.

About 11 we went down to the spa, it had the traditional Turkish bath, with the aroma therapy steam room, and then probably the best massage that I had ever had. It was amazing because everyone we talked to was like oh you are the ones from Fox News trying to go out of their way to impress us. The next morning we made our way down to breakfast and we later greeted by the manager who wanted to give us a tour of the hotel. The Royal Suite wasn’t that impressive but had an extremely long list of VIPs that had stayed there who came to Petra.

Then we made our way to the entrance of Petra which is just right down the street from our hotel, which is why the hotel is so popular location location location. Anyways it was $30 US to get into the park. I couldn’t believe it, which starts our treck down into the valley. Every leg of the way they have horses, carriages, camels, donkeys that are only aloud to go so far so you are always having to negotiate with someone new about prices so you don’t have to walk as far instead of just getting one person for the day. The first leg we walked was just under one mile, through this gorge cut through the mountains on both sides shooting straight up in the air extremely high. The first thing that we came to was the Treasury which is probably the most famous thing there in Petra, which had numerous camels sitting right outside to rent. It was amazing they said I believe it was cut out from the rock and was a village from the 2 BC.

We then bartered with the owners of the camels to let us rent the camels to take us the next miles to the next stop. Which was where several more carvings in the rocks were and where they had established several restaurants in middle of the site. We had a great Arabic lunch and then began our next bartering adventure with the donkey owners to take us up the mountain to the top where there was another amazing site called the monastery http://www.bibleplaces.com/petra.htm which was originally built as a tomb for extremely wealthy people back in the day, but was later used as a monetary for Christians.

This was defiantly quit an experience, in total there are over 1,000 steps to the top of the mountain. But instead of walking we decided to hire some donkeys. Which got very interesting because they had cut out the stairs of the side of the mountain which always had a long way down to plummet if someone fails off. I can’t begin to describe how funny it was ridding a donkey up 1,000 stairs or for that matter that a donkey could do such a thing. But the owner of the donkeys walked alongside the whole time say don’t worry they know where they are going and just to lean forward. Of course where the donkey felt most comfortable walking up the stair was at the very edge of the cliff so there were a few occasions when it got extremely steep that I decided to get off the donkey and walk up a few stairs. Every once in a while there would be a bedowen women sailing old coins or jewelry wanting us to stop and take a look and then finally once we got up about 95% of the way up the owner of the donkey said that we had to walk the rest of the way up because the donkeys couldn’t make it up the rest of the steep stairs ahead. By the time I actually got up to the top I was about to have a heart attack and realized that it was time that I start making my way back to the health club at the hotel in the future, because there was no way I would have been able to walk up all of the stairs to the top of the mountain on my own. At the top of the mountain was the monastery which you wouldn’t believe in a million years existed on top of one of the tallest mountains in Jordan. It was absolutely amazing, defiantly what I would consider the Taj Mahal of the Middle East in terms of ancient architecture and an engineering miracle of there time.

Which is what struck me of the beauty of both the monetary and the Taj Mahal was the fact that they were both originally built as tombs for extremely rich people. The Taj Mahal obviously representing the great love for a wife who had given the husband many children, and the other (the monastery) a lasting symbol of power and wealth. Which both made me think of the good that could have been done if in both cases the owners would have spent their money instead on the poor or betterment of the community. Although I know today we all can think of many examples that the same thing could be done……the first that comes to mind is the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai.

The ride down was just as interesting with the owner saying just lean back and you will be ok. Well after I could feel the donkey struggling to keep its grip on the stairs on the way down I figured it was probably better and safer for me to walk the rest of the way down.

It was a great weekend and defiantly a trip to Petra is something that I would recommend to anyone who is in the area in the future. That’s all for this blog all my best to everyone and hope everyone is doing well.

Chad