by Austin Anderson
"We sang an a capella chorus of “Amazing Grace” inside the naturally carved out cave (with great acoustics) before continuing on our way."
We began the final day of our trip with an early 5 AM wake up call. This was not the original time planned in our itinerary, but due to the rising temperatures we were advised to push our schedule to start earlier in the day. We had breakfast at our hotel, the Hyatt Zaman in Petra, then boarded our bus to the visitor’s center which would become our central hub for the day. Upon our arrival, we started our descent further into Petra on foot.
On our way to our first place on the map, we stopped a few times to examine certain caves and structures carved out in the rock surrounding us. This was fascinating to take in because of the natural way that the water line had formed the shapes in the rock facing! At the close of the first hour of our walk, we rounded a bend and arrived at the Treasury. If you’ve seen the Indiana Jones movies you have seen this structure. What a sight to see at the opening of this passageway!
Moving on from the Treasury, we took a short path around the end to our second marked position for the day: the Theatre. It was carved into the existing rock. Just across the path from the Theatre, we climbed up the steps to the “path of tombs.” This was the next stop on our walk as we took a tour through the Al Kubtha Trail, visiting the tombs. We sang an a capella chorus of “Amazing Grace” inside the naturally carved out cave (with great acoustics) before continuing on our way. We moved along the trail for another little while then stopped for a few minutes to rest and discuss an old church with a beautiful mosaic floor. Continuing on, we past the newest archeological discovery in the city of Petra: the Winged Lion Temple. These new discoveries are being made by Brown University; they have been exploring the area for 9 years now, analyzing what they find and researching the history of it.
After the temple, we came to a split in the path. Dr. Sanders took a group up the side of a mountain to an old monastery. The rest of the group took the trail back through the valley and began our ascent back to the bus. On our way, we got to take in some of the sights we had seen and took advantage of several opportunities to explore shops and stops along our way. When everybody made it back to our meeting point, we boarded our bus again and headed for lunch on our way out of Petra towards our hotel for the evening. We were all very thankful for the place to clean up, eat supper and rest before we made our way to the airport to board our flight back.
Shalom ??
