So today our awesome driver Nasim took us 300 km south of Amman to the ancient rose-stone city of Petra. One of the UNESCO world heritage sites, Petra consists of about 54 km of semi-excavated stone caves and carvings, dating back to 300-200 BCE. It's quite a hike and one would have to spend several days to see the whole thing. In a few hours we managed to hike down to the city center, stopping at the amphitheater and the great temple along the way. There were some good descriptions in my guidebook, and they didn't steer us wrong about the smell either. Between the camels, donkeys, horses, sheep and goats you can imagine that you have to watch where you walk. There are also very enterprising children selling rocks to tourists (actually I think everyone is selling everything). We were lucky it wasn't as hot as yesterday but there was a brief sandstorm-type event and it was actually starting to rain by the time we were leaving.
We had tea in a cave that the proprietor was actually born and raised in until the mid-1980s when the Jordanian government moved the nomads into housing.
So now I've been to 12 world heritage sites and I don't even travel that much. You can check out Petra in the 3rd Indiana Jones movie, which served as the set for part of the film.
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