Petra

Petra Gate Hotel is built on the side of a hill. Entering you're faced with the reception and welcome foyer / social room, downstairs are the bedrooms which have views overlooking the town. The room is cosy and most importantly the bathroom shower works! The owner is really friendly and in the evening serves Maklobah, a meal all cooked in a large pot, a layer of meat first, then vegetables, and finally rice, when cooked it is turned upside down and served on a huge communal plate. The only drawback is they seem to have carted rocks from the canyon in order to fashion pillows, which I discovered when falling back onto the bed and almost knocking myself out!

Canyon of the Crescent Moon

It's a short-taxi ride down the hill to reach the site entrance for the canyon. I join Elizabeth and Jason, a couple from America I met the previous evening, to go and explore. It's been raining overnight and feels fresh this morning, a fairly novel experience after 6 dry weeks in Egypt. We start off early to get there for opening at 8am. Across from the ticket booth and tourist office there are a bunch of souvenir shops office displaying genuine Petra rock carvings and t-shirts, along with soft drinks and snacks. The best has to be the store selling everything fake whips and hats, complete with a huge copyright infringing sign showing Indiana Jones.

The Siq ('shaft') is the name for the gorge by which you enter the city from the east. The path narrows, canyon walls rise and lean over above you, and a sense of being comparatively small amidst this vast place, steeped in history, exciting exotic reveries of adventure, is immediately amplified. It's a wonder more people don't walk into each other as necks are constantly bent backwards marvelling at the scale.

At waist height, carved into the rock are irrigation channels. An earlier sign at the entrance explained how the Nabataeans designed a water management system to control flooding using dams, and in recent years these have been shored up after flash flooding endangered tourists. Flecks of moisture in the air become more frequent and noticeable. The sudden downpour catches everyone and people scurry for shelter in hollowed bends protected by overhanging rocks. Puddles form quickly and soon a small yet growing stream bubbles along the path towards us gathering momentum until its flow is halted by a sagging in the earth. Large puddles of red-rust water form leaving only patches for people to skip over at risk of soggy-shoes.

After 10 minutes admiring the shower, checking to see if the water channels work, and wondering if many people get to experience rain when they visit Petra, it eases enough to continue onwards. Al Khazneh ('the Treasury') comes into view, carved in the side of the mountain facing, and a throng of digi-camera snappers half-block the way all vying for the optimum shot. Walking past them and up to the steps the sheer size is daunting, so much so that it takes me a while to notice just to the right of the steps, I'm stood only a few yards away from a camel taking a rest. She looks bored and unimpressed. I can't tell if it's with me or the monument.

Donkey work

The monastery is further into the canyon following a route of 750 steps unevenly spaced out on a weaving pathway ascending up the mountains. At certain corners and on brief plateaus, Bedouin women and sometimes small children sit by makeshift stalls asking of you would like to buy trinkets and bracelets. Rides are offered by guides who stress the time it takes to reach the summit. At one point on the climb, we're passed by a small caravan of donkeys walking down one after the other about 10 paces apart. I'm expecting to see an owner following after them from round the corner but no-one's there. I wonder are they training donkeys able to undertake journeys by themselves no need for guides to follow? Or, maybe inspired by Orwell they've organised themselves into a radical independent cooperative to provide transport and ensure decent work conditions by getting rid off whip-handling guides? Either way it looks a precarious way to go up or down steps.

The Monastery was not actually a place for a religious order but a tomb, however, possibly due to the inscriptions of crosses inside it acquired this tag. A couple of hundred yards away is a conveniently located Bedouin cafe selling coffee and chai. After a brew and sit down we push on towards the nearby summit for the recommended views. A number of signs are dotted about, 'view' with arrows pointing to different rocks, hmm, which to choose... we spot a bold sign (from some enterprising individual) that reads 'the view', complete with definite article this must be the best, solved!

Spread out across the mountain-sides are tombs and structures, imprints from of Nabataean and later Graeco-Roman period of influence. These monuments are impressive remnants of the civilisations which once thrived here.

However, the natural landscape is equally staggering, with fascinating terracotta caves, rough, hollowed out arches with fingerprint patterns of ruddy swirling rock veins.

It's a fairly long trek back to the site entrance and a visit to a pub on the walk back up the hill is welcome, even if the Guinness sign outside is only "for decoration" as the bartender explains.