a Geographer's Place

The day in Petra began like other days: walking through the siq in early morning light, coming out at the Treasury to find it devoid of people – only a couple camels, their owner, and a local “street sweeper” (one of the people who comes in before Petra opens to make sure the grounds are clean). Petra’s magnificence still almost overwhelms me every time. And even more so when the spirit of the Fulbright program occurs – that “...promotion of goodwill...” they mention . With only one day in Petra this time, our plan was to do what most single-day tourists do: wander through the main valley on the way to the Monastery, spend some time there, and then spend the rest of the day wandering around other various monuments in the valley. We stopped by our Bedouin friend’s tent in the valley to chat quickly, and let her know we’d be back later that afternoon to purchase items from her shop. She was super welcoming as always, and had tea ready for us – as if she expected us....

Here begins the Traveler-tourist Circuit experiment. Each day or so another post will come online, detailing our experiences and a play-by-play of what we did. So... …on to Petra... After picking up our guests at the Amman airport, we drove back to the apartment for the night. We awoke early, leaving about 8:00am and taking a leisurely drive to Wadi Musa (the town at Petra’s gate). En route we drove on part of the King’s Highway, and attempted to visit Karak Castle. We found ourselves driving through a couple souks, and getting lost in the process. Very lost. We finally found a main road and, in the interest of time, decided to push on and explore Showbak Castle. Side note on “Highways” and signs: I use “Highway” in King’s Highway loosely. It’s not a very well-maintained road, but it follows the Roman Via Nova Triana , meaning it follows a pretty well-traveled route. Oddly, however, not many tourists take the road. Maybe even though it is a beautiful drive, people a...

Last week a Fulbright colleague called and asked if we wanted to go to Petra. We have a project we wanted to do there anyway so…no brainer. The following day we headed south. He had made arrangements for us to stay at a Bedouin camp for the night. These can be kitschy, but we had the entire camp to ourselves. It is off season, after all.  After arriving, we wandered through Little Petra just outside the village of Bayda. We also took a little walk to a supposed Neolithic site. While not as grand as their neighbor, they were still interesting. One cave still had 2,000+ year-old partial frescoes in it! Entrance to Little Petra. The small wadi (canyon) contains a small cluster of Nabataean tombs. Just  before sunset, we drove up to a viewpoint. The view over  Wadi Araba as Earth was finishing its rotational period was gorgeous. As the sun crept lower in the sky I realized the Green Flash would probably be visible. It was. Except it wasn’t just a “spark” like I’ve s...