On the second day in Jordan, I joined a tour to Petra Ruins. We arrived at the entrance of Petra Ruins by 5-minute walk from the hotel. It was already hot even in the morning.
Petra means “rock” in Greek. As its name showed, there was nothing but rocks as far as I could see. Petra was once flourished as the trade center in ancient times.
Soon a number of caves appeared at the mountain side. Caves with decorations were tombs and the simple caves were dwelling houses. The caves were so created because people put more emphasis on the afterworld than the real life in those days.
Then we came into the narrow gorge formed from a deep split in the rocks. The gorge was shadowy and I felt relatively cool there. The color of the rock face changed from white to red.

*DMC-ZS10/TZ20 records images in max.14-megapixel and DMC-ZS7/TZ10 in max.12-megapixel.

There were remains of water conduits in places. One of the reasons for the prosperity of Petra was that it provided the facilities to control water supply. It also constructed dams to control the flash flood which hit the area after rainfalls. The stone-paved roads showed the influence of Europe. I felt that a lot of wisdoms were utilized in the ordinary scenery which drew less attention.

Al Khazneh suddenly appeared just when I got tired after a long walk of the narrow gorge! “Wow!!” It had a powerful and dominating presence. The way Al Khazneh appeared in my eyes was so dramatic that I could not help but to think it was carefully designed so.

How awesome it was! It was carved and sculpted out of a sandstone rock face. The ground was elevated by about 20 meters due to the long-term sand accumulation, which buried some parts of the structure. This extent of sand accumulation made me feel its long time flow after Al Khazneh was built. I was very impressed that the beauty of the architecture had still remained after thousands of years. A number of structures such as the kings? tombs and a theater were seen in the broad plain. Unfortunately, the structures built with stones were all destroyed by an earthquake. There were once arches, columns and temples at the entrance of the gorge, but all except the caves which were carved from rocks were collapsed and only the debris remained.

The natural patterns of the rock surface inside the temple, which was carved from rocks, seemed to be beautiful carpets. The panorama of Petra Ruins from a hilltop overwhelmed me by its striking, spectacular scale. According to our guide, only a few percent of Petra Ruins has been excavated. Then how large was the city of Petra at its peak? It was hard to imagine how much time and labor were spent to create such an amazing city.

Other than Wadi Rum and Petra, Jordan has many attractive sites such as Dead Sea. I added Jordan to my “Country I want to visit again? list.