A second day in the Rose City

Our second day in Petra was just as thrilling as the first. Knowing that another bowl of Mövenpick ice cream potentially awaited us when we finished, definitely kept us going when fatigue set in.

Khalid was able to get us into some of the tombs that tourists are usually not allowed to visit.  The tombs were rather integral to the whole social structure of ancient Petra. Many of the tombs by the treasury were along the main road, and thus were easy prey for robbers. One of the main forms of employment in the city was to guard the tombs of the wealthy.  Families that lacked the wealth to pay for post-mortem bodyguards, often covered the graves with a large slab of marble, and then they lived in the tomb to economize.  

The goal of the day, however, was to take a donkey up the steep mountain to the monastery.  This is about a forty-minute ride straight up the mountain. I closed my eyes a few times as my donkey skidded on the smooth stones that lined the precipice. Lubos repeatedly attempted to take photos from his donkey. In all of them I am the headless horseman. At the top of the mountain, the monastery is impressive – mostly for the sense of isolation from the rest of the city. We enjoyed taking in the view of the canyon at the site marked “Sacrifice!”

The joy of being with Khalid is that he helped us see into the world of the Jordanians. He struck up a conversation with every child he met, and we sat with his friends and had tea. It was very non-touristy – and made our days there even more special.  We sat beside the former inn that is next to the former Roman Cardo, and a lovely Jordanian family served us tea and quince. The young girl spoke perfect English, and she spoke of her desire to some day work in the city of Wadi Musa – which most of us would call a village. Khalid surprised us all by placing a call to his brother, and setting up an appointment for a job interview at a local hotel. He was not just in love with the site – he was in love with the local people. 

Lastly, we had one more thing that really surprised us in Petra.  We would see the old Bedouin women selling Roman coins on the side of the path up the mountain.  We would stop to chat; Khalid was an excellent interpreter for us. Suddenly, we would hear this strange noise and the old woman would pull out a cell phone from under her burka! This was everywhere we went. Khalid explained to us that today the Bedouin still mark their camels with a scar that indicates the tribe that they belong to. Today, if a camel wanders to far from its territory, and the scar identifies it as belonging to the neighboring tribe, instead of chasing the animal back to its territory, they call each other on the cell phone and tell the owner to come and pick up their beast!  An example of how cell phones could be put to more practical use than simply calling home to ask your partner to remind you what you were supposed to pick up at the grocery…