PETRA
The next morning I was up at 7:30 and went down to the resturant for breakfast. This included;
Potato rounds
Bacon
Fish (very Swedish)
Bread
Tomato Juice
After this I met the guide, our driver Mohammed in the lobby. The Canadian couple appreared and we were off to the business office of Petra, where you buy tickets to enter the park. which was across the street. When we got there a guide from Petra was assigned to us who would accompany us to the site entrance and through the gorge that leads to the actual city. It was quite a walk to the entrance of Petra so we had the option of riding a horse. I took a horse. The ride was only about ten minutes. There are twenty or more massive monuments in the vicinity of Petra. There are square rocks near the entrance. They are representations of the dieties of the ancient people who came through this area three thousand years ago. The actual passageway that leads to Petra is a huge crack in the mountain which took place millions of years ago resulting from a natural occurrance of nature. It is wide enough for people and horse drawn carriages to pass through with ease.
There is also evidence that a Roman road once ran through the canyon as seen in the picture above..

Once we arrived at the entrance we dismounted our horses and followed the guide in on foot. The first major monument he pointed out to us was the Obelisk Tomb. It is called this because of four Indian style obelisks on the second story of the tomb. Near this is a quarry where the Nabataeans quarried for some kind of a substance called silica that they made cement out of. The Nabataean people were the nomad merchants who carved the facades and built and lived in Petra. As you go farther in you come to a dam. It was built across the entrance of the canyon to stop the water from flowing into Petra from flash floods during the rainy season which in past centuries has ruined parts of the city.

Then there were more of the massive square stone monuments which were their dieties. The stones are called Jinn rocks. There are around twenty of them in and around Petra. These gods that the Nabataean people worshipped had faces carved into them. One intersting note was the male god did not have a mouth. It had only eyes and a nose. On the other hand, the woman gods had a mouth along with eyes and nose. That tells you something about these people, and about human nature.

As we walked along there were numerous points of interest that the guide brought to our attention; such as; small tombs and an ancient system of pipes that the people who lived there used to bring water into the area during the dry seasons. There is also an ingenious resevior system where rain water was collected and stored.

Along the sides of the cavern there were places to put oil lamps to light the way at night. There were also little nitches here and there where people could put little statues of thier gods.