Monday, November 18, 2019; Aqaba, Jordan and The Lost City of Petra

Monday, November 18, 2019; Aqaba, Jordan and The Lost City of Petra Excursion

The Sapphire Princess approached its moorage at the Port of Aqaba as the sun was rising.  We were greeted with a control tower that looks a bit like a small version of the Seattle Space Needle, and a long row of tour buses.  We grabbed a quick breakfast in the Buffett and then cued to disembark for our tours.  Most of the passengers were going to the Lost City of Petra, which is a 2 hour bus ride from Aqaba, but there are also many repeat passengers who have been on this port of call before, such as the Linda and Paul from Houston that we play trivia with.  They are going on a snorkeling trip instead, and a few others we have talked with in passing are going on a Jeep tour of the Wadi Rum, the red stone world of desert canyons and badlands that did such a good job of hiding Petra from the rest of the world for so long.  

We learned that the city of Aqaba is a unique free-trade zone within the country of Jordan.  That means that there are no import/export duties or taxes on goods bought or sold for personal and non-commercial use.  There is a border crossing between Aqaba and the rest of Jordan where traffic into and out of Aqaba can be inspected.  We also learned that Aqaba has earned the title of 9th cleanest city in the world.  We didn’t spend much time touring Aqaba since everyone wanted to spend as much time as possible exploring Petra.  Our buses just went straight from the cruise port to the border checkpoint, but the city that we drove by did look clean and modern, complete with McDonalds advertising banners along the Main Street.

The women on the streets are one of the first thing that is noticeably different from the street scenes of the past several weeks.  In Europe, it was notable that even in November, many women still wear short skirts, but with notable attention to fancy leggings and patterned stockings.  And, as in the US, Yoga pants are everywhere.  There is nothing concealing the female form.  Here in Jordan, which is a relatively moderate Muslim country, the women are swathed in a variety of styles, but all have head coverings and flowing garments that while concealing details, are still beautiful and feminine in their own way.  The men, on the other hand, look pretty much like they do everywhere else in the world, in tattered jeans, T-shirts printed with western logs, and unshaven.  

There did not seem to be a lot of traffic on the streets, aside from near the cruise port and in Wadi Muso, where Petra and all the tourists are located.  Most of the traffic in the country side was large multi axle heavy trucks.  It is not uncommon to see 4 or even 6 axles on these trucks, which also seem to move in convoys carrying various commercial loads.  There are, of course, a smattering of Hyundai sedans, and the rare Mercedes sedans, but the most common personal vehicle by far is none other than the trusty Toyota Hi-Lux compact pick-up truck.  This is commonly stereotyped as the vehicle of choice amongst Arab terrorists, but perhaps that has come to be simply because it is the only commonly available vehicle in these parts.  

As we drove to Wadi Muso, we did pass a couple of green agricultural fields, and our guide mentioned that there are springs that provide water to some areas, making them highly desirable.  The area is otherwise quite arid.  We did drive across a few arroyos filled with litter, but much of the countryside did look like the Atacama Desert of Peru.  Most of the construction is of concrete and stucco, with a high prevalence of unfinished top floors- something also common in Greece, Chile, and several other places around the world we have visited.

As we approached Wadi Muso from the top of a ridge surrounding the Wadi Rum, we could see that it has many features of the desert southwestern US with it’s sandstone canyons, carved intricately by eons of erosion and uplifted and tilted by seismic activity.  

We made a bathroom stop at a restaurant and gift shop overlooking the Wad Rum.  The view was spectacular, but the winds were so strong that it was quite possible for a gust to pry a smartphone out of your hands and plunge it into the abyss.  On the hill behind us, wind turbines take advantage of these winds to generate power for the area.  They tried real hard to make the place nice with plate glass walls letting in the view, but the wind was so strong that it whistled through every little crack and electrical outlet, and caused the building, built on bedrock to sway.

Wadi Muso appears to be a city of hotels, restaurants and gift shops that has sprung up on the hillsides around the entrance to Petra, which is accessed through a mile long slot canyon called the Siq.  Quite an industry has sprung up around the Lost City of Petra.  There is a very modern museum next to the entrance to the site, which is adjacent to the parking lot for tour buses.  We were actually dropped off in front of the Petra Palace Hotel, which has several banquet rooms used to feed the Princess Cruises excursion passengers.  We were given tickets for the lunch and then walked down to the Petra entrance, about a quarter mile down the road. We arrived in Wadi Muso about 9:30am. 

Our guide took us down the sloping road to the entrance of the Siq.  There are horse drawn carts, horses and donkeys that can be hired for taking passengers down the 1 mile length of the Siq, which is pretty much all downhill.  The horsemen say the horse rides are free, but they expect a $20 tip for their assistance and another $10 tip for the horse, and even more for the return trip.  We were warned in advance by Princess to use these services at your own risk.  What we discovered is that those services put everyone at risk because those horses, horse carts and donkeys use the same path as everyone else, and they don’t stop for nobody.  If you hear one coming, you have to move quickly to the side of the path, or risk getting trampled or run over.  They at least have workers along the Siq shoveling up the manure so it doesn’t accumulate.  Parts of the path are roughly paved with the equivalent of crushed compacted rock, but there are many irregular stones protruding and other surface irregularities such that anyone with even mild mobility issues should not even consider this excursion.  There are long stretches past the Siq that are paved with huge flattened stones like giant cobbles, but these require a lot of attention, like stepping stones in a creek, so you really have to watch where you are going.  

We were fortunate that the sun was out, but it was not hot.  As a matter of fact, the day started off in the upper 50’s, and finished off in the afternoon in the mid 60’s- a good temperature to be hiking around on rocks and covering a couple miles on uneven surfaces.  

Walking down the Siq is just like going down a slot canyon in the Grand Canyon or Bryce Canyon, but with the bottom roughly paved.  It is peaceful  and beautiful, but at the end of the Siq, our guide advised us to walk forward following him looking only at the ground until he gave us the OK.  Well, inevitably, an occasional passenger would cheat and look up, and each one had exactly the same reaction of “OH MY GOD!”.  When our guide finally gave us permission to look up, we could see just why everyone else did had an OMG moment.  Whereas looking up in the slot canyon gave hints of the walls of the canyon ahead, when we looked up at this spot, what we saw was our first glimpse of The Treasury, the most iconic structure at the Lost City of Petra, glowing brilliantly in the morning light.  All the pictures in magazines fail to capture the magnitude of seeing this massive intricately carved facade towering out from nowhere.  The first explorer who set his eyes on this after working his way through the Siq would have fallen off his horse upon seeing this, and his horse might very well have startled as well.  While it looked like an elaborate set in Indiana Jones, in real life it is breath taking.  

Once you get over the shock of seeing the Treasury, the trail leads around a corner and there you see hundreds of cave dwellings and other structures carved into the sandstone walls.  In the present day, most of those at the ground level serve as stalls for donkeys, horses and camels, but anthropologists believe the most elaborate structures were originally used as burial chambers.  In later years they became dwellings and in Roman times, a huge city had developed.  There was a large amphitheater carved into a hillside that could seat thousands. There were even deluxe box seating for VIP’s.  There were also some enormous stone temples erected atop the sandstone.  You could easily spend a few days exploring the city, which is larger than the complex at Machu Picchu, but smaller than Pompei.  We just had a couple of hours, but we felt that we had a pretty decent introduction to Petra walking down the Siq to the Treasury, then to the Great Temple, and then up to the Royal Tombs.  

There are vendors lining the streets and animals tied up and wandering about on the site.  The vendors can be aggressive, but they weren’t as bad as what we had run into on our tour of China in 2006.  The hike back up the Siq was a decent work out, but not nearly as strenuous as walking around Machu Picchu.  

We had lunch at the Buffett, but after having been spoiled by our cruise ship food, we were pretty disappointed with the quality of the foods offered.  There was a decent stuffed lamb, but the peas in the stuffing were hard, like undercooked beans, and the chicken was so dry you could hardly eat it.  The desserts were good, though.  We then did a quick walkthrough of their museum, which had a rough timeline from the Stone Age to the early Iron Age.  There are some interesting artifacts including quite a collection of oil lamps. None with a genie, however.  

Everyone was bushed when we boarded the buses at 3:15pm.  We were scheduled to leave at 3:30, but we were the last couple to board our bus because everyone else was tired and wanted to go back to the ship early.  Most slept on the bus as it made it’s way back to the ship.  It was dark by the time we reboarded the ship.  

There was a lot of fine sand blowing about.  It would have been nice to have brought some bicycling goggles and a face bandana, like the ones you sometimes get on ATV tour excursions.  Many people bought Arab style head ware to protect their faces and for unique souvenirs.  Back on the ship we saw a woman proudly wearing her head wear, blissfully unaware that what she was wearing was strictly for men, and not for women.  But the Bedouin who sold it to her was happy to take her money anyways.  

We did a quick dinner in the buffet so we could catch the early comedian show in the Princess Theater. We had seen this David Copperfield comic act before, but it was fresh and entertaining seeing him again.  He does some funny ventriloquism using audience members as unwitting dummies, and also is a talented tenor singer and guitarist. 

We had Paul and Linda join us for British music trivia, which if it had been on songs from the 50’s to 80’s, we would have won, but there were 4 songs from the 2000’s that we had no idea about, so we probably finished third. 

Since there was nothing else to do, we stuck around for a Music Bingo game, but quickly came to realize that we had decided on a prior cruise that we would never play that game again because it is simply way too much work and effort.  But we did get a chance to work on our song recall skills.  

Tomorrow, we have a ship wide pirate drill- a first for us.  We are told this is mandatory for cruise ships traversing the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa.  It is also the first progressive trivia of this cruise.  We have several sea days in a row, and a cruise segment will be completed when the ship hits Dubai, so that will probably be the end of the progressive trivia.  Since Linda and Paul are disembarking in Dubai, that will work out.