Petra day 2: little Petra and the Monastery

We are a lot better today, the cold medicine that we picked up from the pharmacy are doing good. The program today is to go visit little Petra, walk to the Monastery and walk the site back to the main entrance. Instead of walking the main trail, we will make a detour and take the orange colored trail that goes to the high place of sacrifice.

We arrive at the free shuttle parking, the first one leaves at 7:30 where we meet another French traveler, let’s call him Fred, we actually didn’t exchange names but we walked together the entire morning.

Fred is newly retired and travels almost all year in his campervan. He is now on a middle-east trip where he drove from France and explored: Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Saoudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrein and Qatar. And after Jordan, he has found a group of campervans to make a convoy and go to Bagdad. He shares about his career, expats for many years across the world, and his travels. He is a very interesting morning walk companion for sure.

We board the shuttle to little Petra. I have read in many blogs that it could be skipped. While, yes in a way if you only have one day, you shouldn’t go there, the main site is huge enough. 

Little Petra is accessed through  short canyon and then opens to two main area. Each has beautifully carved facades and many rock carved houses and openings. I did like the overall feeling of it, because the site is narrow and is a one way in, same way out. 

The main element to see is in the Biclinium, it has an original Nabatean ceiling decoration of delicate flowers and vines. It’s extremely detailed. 

Then you continue on through some long and narrow stairs to an outcrop over the valley below. It’s a nice view. We were a grand total of 7 people visiting the site at the same time.

It took about 30min to visit, then we were herded to the jeeps that for JOD5 drives you to the back of Petra and the trail leading to the Monastery.

The hike up to the monastery is long and difficult if you have knee issues, because it’s a LOT of stairs. Along the way, you enjoy beautiful views of the canyons and mountains. It’s nature, not much archeological ruins to observe until the end.

The Monastery is quite impressive. It’s much wider than the treasury, but it doesn’t have the same detailed carvings and decorations. I find that it’s really well preserved. We are still the same group of people. We arrived there at 10:25, we left Little Petra at 8:30, so we took about 2h to complete the hike at a slow and steady pace.

The staircase down from the Monastery to downtown Petra is quite long and it takes us a good hour. It’s where we bid Fred goodbye, he is continuing on the main trail and I want to see a small site called the painted room which is a little out of the way.

This painted room was referenced in the museum has having kept wall paintings. It’s not at ground level, it’s a good few floors up and it takes us a few minutes to get the start of the stairs leading to it.

Once this is done, we are away from all the noises and people, there is a nice flat rock calling our name for lunch. We settle down in the shade for our picnic and relax for a little while.

We walk back to the main trail and look for the start of the High places of sacrifice trail, which is behind Qasr al Bint. It crosses through the plain behind and on the right side is a huge cliff with a lot of carved facades and tombs. Then we round a corner and it’s on our right that monumental ( but simple ) tombs can be seen. This trail is supposed to be a procession route to the high place of sacrifice at the top of the Siq.

Up we continue on the gentle slope, we pass by some notable tombs: the renaissance tomb, the soldier’s tomb and the garden hall.

The soldier’s tomb was the real motivation for me to hike this trail. It’s beautifully decorated with remains of soldiers statues in the front ( hence the name ). Inside the room is huge, with extremely high ceiling. And the most interesting part is in the triclinium ( roman name for dining room or banqueting hall ) on the opposite. It’s carved into the rock as well, and is also very deep. The unique features are the columns and wall engravings still visible. No other triclinium had anything left inside other than rock benches or tables. ( tri- for three rock tables and bi-clinium for two rock tables ).

We walk and just at the corner is the cistern and the garden hall next to it. In front of this monument is a pool, that an ingenious nearby cistern feeds. You can clearly see the irrigation channels.

And that’s where the stairs start. They are carved in the rock, clearly ancient, smooth, narrow and very steep. As we climb higher, the view over the valley gets better.

Then we end up on a platform and a huge lion fountain is there. The body of the lion is very recognizable, I believe the head is in the museum. The basin of the fountain is hardly distinguishable below anymore. 

And on we continue with the stairs – it’s a slow grind. Finally, we reach the top. We continue onto rocks higher up to a square shaped “pool” like enclosure. It was the ceremonial place. There are old altars visible on the left side. Nothing too interesting if I am being honest.

The real reason for coming up here is the view of the entire Petra downtown area and also the royal tombs from above.

Finally, the way is down – and we walk along more tombs and holes in the cliff faces along the staircase. It ends between the theater and the street of facades. We are quite tired.

We start our walk back through the Siq, enjoyed another view of the Treasury. At the exit of the Siq, I am done and decide to bargain for a horse for the last 2km back to the visitor center. I managed to get a ride for JOD 3. It’s not very far, but my watch is already at 20km and my feet are sore.

Today wasn’t supposed to be as much distance, but I guess the size of this site still catches you by surprise !

After a quick stop at the bakery for bread, we are back at our AirBnB and crash. I made Fatteh for diner.  We are physically exhausted, we climbed up two canyons today and that was a LOT of stairs !