Travelogue on Jordan: Petra—The Kingdom of the Nabataeans and one of the Seven Wonders of the World
MORE ABOUT OUR ITINERARY AND EXPENSES IN JORDAN – see TRAVEL TO JORDAN.
READ THE FIRST TRAVELOGUE ABOUT JORDAN – see ARRIVAL AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF JORDAN
Our second day in Jordan began with a very early wake-up call because we had to walk to the spot where we would catch the bus to Petra. The round-trip transfer to Petra cost us 18 JOD per person. The bus company was called JETT, and they have an office on the coastal boulevard in Aqaba near the Grand Mosque. We bought the tickets themselves from Viator. In this travelogue about Jordan and Petra, we’ll try to be as helpful as possible by providing up-to-date information and guidance on how to organize a trip like this.
The trip to Petra took 3 hours one way; along the way, we stopped for a 15-minute break with a view of Petra from above. We got off at the bus station near Petra, then walked down some stairs and reached the entrance.
The ticket price per person is 50 dinars for 1 day, 55 dinars for 2 days, and 60 dinars for 3 days. The price includes a horse ride. If you’ve purchased a Jordan Pass in advance, then Petra will be completely free for you. Children get in for free. No matter how you look at it, we spent about 250 BGN just on Petra… We console ourselves with the thought that we’ve seen one of the wonders of the world 🙂
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The ancient rock-cut city of Petra is located in southwestern Jordan. Right next to it is the town of Wadi Mousa, which currently serves as the starting point for visiting this wonder of the world. The city is a preserved monument to a people who have since disappeared—the Nabataeans.
The rose-red city of Petra is unique both for its location and for its well-preserved dwellings, tombs, and administrative buildings. Petra is divided into several sections. At the start, you walk 800 meters along a flat path lined with huge rocks. This is also where locals offer horseback rides to the start of the Siq. Although the ride is included in the ticket price, the guides expect a tip. We skipped this option because our children didn’t want to ride.
Next comes another section called the Sik Pass, which is 1,100 m long. It is a narrow, windy pass that in some places is no more than 1.80 m wide, with cliffs on both sides as high as a 6-story building. At its entrance, there are remnants of an arch that likely once served as a gateway. This is the ultra-mega-awesome canyon for perfect selfies 🙂 It’s so beautiful—1,100 meters between the cliffs—and it got even more beautiful around every bend.
Along the way, we passed water reservoirs, aqueducts carrying water to the city, altars for sacrifices to the Nabataean gods, and figures of horses and camels carved into the rock. The Siq was originally a paved street. Now, only a few sections remain in their original form.
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If you don't feel like walking, then everywhere in Petra you can find a horse, donkey, camel or filton you will encounter an additional paid service, with which to explore the sights in the stone city. A word of advice—bring a hat or wrap a scarf around your head, because there’s a rather unpleasant draft and a light breeze throughout Petra.
A few more turns through the Siq, and there before us stands the majestic Treasury (the Treasury). It consists of a carved, sheer, dark-pink rock facade 30 meters wide and 43 meters high. The Treasury was carved in the early 1st century as the tomb of a revered Nabataean king and stands as a testament to the engineering genius of this ancient people.
In front of the Treasury, you can take a photo with a camel, and for a really good selfie, you’ll need to climb some pretty steep rocks up to a viewing platform where you can photograph the enormous building carved into the rock and the entire “square” in front of it from above. The most popular photos of Petra are taken right from there, but you need to be careful when climbing up and down.
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The Treasury is just the first of the many beautiful structures built in Petra. If you want to explore everything thoroughly, you’ll need at least two or three days. When you enter the Petra Valley, you’ll be struck by the natural beauty of this place and its extraordinary architectural achievements. There are about 500 rock-cut tombs with intricate carvings, enchanting visitors with their mysterious dark openings. The complex also features a massive Nabatean structure and a Roman-style theater with a capacity of 3,000 people. You’ll see obelisks, temples, altars, and colonnaded streets, and high above, overlooking the valley, stands the impressive Al-Deir (Ad Deir) Monastery—an 800-step climb up the rock will take you there.
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According to other travelogues and guidebooks, Petra is the place with the cheapest souvenirs in Jordan, so if you want to treat your loved ones and relatives to a small gift, be sure to set aside some time for shopping in Petra. Artisans from the town of Wadi Musa and the nearby Bedouin village have set up small stalls selling clay items, Bedouin jewelry, and small bottles filled with multicolored sand arranged into various shapes.
We personally don’t make a habit of taking any items from the places we visit, unless it’s something that’s truly worth it. We cherish the memories and look at the photos. They’re more than enough for us. The only thing we did was fill a mineral water bottle with sand and take a few stones as souvenirs, since both the rocks and the sand there have a particularly beautiful pinkish-beige hue.
Much to our regret, before our flight to Sofia, security at the airport confiscated all our sand and stones, but since in situations like that nothing in the world can stop me, I made a huge scene about them taking my stones and throwing them in the trash can, they could at least have returned them to the Petra complex, so they decided to let us keep one little stone as a souvenir after all 🙂
On the way back from Petra on the bus, we had a different driver who looked incredibly interesting—like a typical Arab sheikh. He was wearing an elegant suit and a neatly tied headscarf. Well, this driver really showed us what he was made of—he drove as if he were trying to win a Formula 1 race. Only then did we realize why buses aren’t supposed to go faster than 80 km/h. Ours was going 120–130 km/h, and we felt like we were literally going to fly off the bus—and we were sitting right in the front. Also, for a good portion of the time, he was driving in the oncoming lane.
Thank God we made it back safe and sound to Aqaba, where we took a quick stroll through the market stalls, bought my son a wonderful Spider-Man outfit at a super low price, had a bite to eat, and went back to the apartment to sleep.
The next day, the WADI RUM DESERT was calling us
READ THE NEXT TRAVELOGUE ABOUT JORDAN – SPENDING THE NIGHT IN THE WADI RUM DESERT
