When most Americans think of Petra, if they think of it at all, it’s probably because of this scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
But Petra is one of the seven wonders of the modern world, alongside the Taj Mahal and Great Wall of China, it just doesn’t get as much press.
Petra lies in Jordan, a small middle-eastern country that neighbors Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria. As you might guess, the current political climate has taken a toll on tourism here. On one level, this was our gain, as the Petra site, usually overrun by tourists, was not crowded at all. On the other hand, about half of the high-end hotels have had to shut their doors for lack of business, and the souvenir vendors have become exceedingly aggressive.
Oh yes, and the tourist buses each have a cop….with a gun.
We are booked into the Movenpick hotel, a Swiss chain, nice but not fancy, chosen for its prime location just steps from the entrance to the site. We arrive late and get a quick bite in the bar before turning in, a little mezze plate with hummus and toubouli and pita. I’ve been experiencing some tummy trouble since India, and had attempted to mind-over-matter this by eating the American style food that I craved while in Tanzania. But in Africa, not even the Four Seasons can make a cheeseburger that tastes anything like home, and don’t even get me started on the room service pizza with oddly cardboard crust and ketchupy sauce. My tummy did not improve, it continues to be unhappy and occasionally stabby, so I may as well eat the local fare (heavy on the rice) while popping Pepto Bismol tablets.
We opt for the early hike to Petra, before the sun really starts blazing. The town, like all the towns we visit or drive through in Jordan, is not pretty. The landscape is dry and dusty and rocky – the homes boxy, the vegetation spindly. But even the approach to Petra is pretty magnificent.   The red rock mountain, upon closer inspection, are a million colors, the swirling patterns of which look like a melting chocolate Sacher torte.
Things really get cool when you enter the Siq, a long (nearly a mile) tall (nearly 500 feet in places) narrow gorge where you are cautioned to dodge the occasional horse carts that have no rules regarding pedestrians.

At the far end the Siq opens to reveal the Treasury. This is the iconic structure of Petra from Indiana Jones. It looks like the exterior of a bank, more or less, except that it is a couple thousand years old and carved into the Rock. All of the ancient structures (BC) we will see in Petra are carved into the Rock like a cave as opposed to the newer structures (AD) which may be built of quarried brick or rock.  
From there our guide, Muhanned (yes, he spelled in with a n) took us through the major sites of Petra. He is young and funny and likable. He pokes fun at the Saudis and at fundamentalists. His brother moved to America and married an American. Jordanians in general are liberal, not a surprise given that of the previous King’s 4 wives (in succession not simultaneous) one was American, and one, the mother of the current King, whose portrait, Kevin points out, looks a lot like John Elway, was a Brit.
There are ruins of a couple of civilizations inside the mountain walls. Temples of the Nabatean people,  and churches built by the Romans who conquered them (by cutting off their water supply).The ancient city has a series of fairly sophisticated aqueducts. If these ran dry, you can see how the Nabateans would be forced out pretty quick (sneaky Romans).
There are hundreds of vendors, though Muhanned does a decent job keeping them at bay. One little kiosk is operated by the son of the Western woman who married a Bedouin and lived with him in a cave for years. He sells signed copies of her memoir and a pretty collection of jewelry she designed based on Nabatean motifs. We buy both.
The tour ends at a restaurant which serves a big, middle eastern buffet (I eat rice, and rice and a couple samosas that I couldn’t resist). The walk in was nearly 3 miles, and after lunch the sun is blistering, so we opt to ride camels back as far as the Treasury, and walk that last mile through the shady Siq to the hotel, rewarding ourselves at the fabulous ice cream shop on the ground floor.
That evening we are bussed to little Petra. The Siq there, barely visible in the dark, has been laid with carpet runners and lit with thousands of candles set in paper bags full of sand. We walk it, single file. The sky so full of stars you can see the smear of the Milky Way. The path ends at a clearing where cocktail tables have been set up, and then this crazy booming spooky Gregorian chant style music, like something from the exorcist or the omen starts and this wild light show from inside the little Petra stone monument. When we are led back out the entrance, invisible in the dark when we’d arrived, it has magically been lit up, and filled with tables, where we are served a Bedouin feast with music and dance.

The next morning we visit Wadi Rum on our way back to the airport. Wadi Rum means ‘valley of the moon,’ and is reminiscent of monument valley in Utah. Like a national park, there are just a few homes near the entrance where park workers live, and the rest in protected land for camping and recreation…like 4 wheeling. We are piled in pairs into 4×4 jeeps. Our driver is a kid, and it doesn’t take much encouragement from me to get him to really open that baby up and we blow by our more tentative companions, fish tailing and spitting sand. This land is where Lawrence of Arabia was famously shot, and also where the actual Lawrence past many times during the Arab revolt. He called this place the seven pillars of wisdom, and wrote a book about it. It is also where the current blockbuster ‘The Martian’ was filmed, as it is red and rocky and a great stand in for that rocky, dusty, red planet.
There are more remains of the Nabateans here, we enter Khazali canyon and admire their wall art. (Which I must admit, I thought looked suspiciously ginned up for tourists).
After visiting a Bedouin tent for tea and biscuits, we head back to Aqaba airport and onward to our final destination-Morocco.