Petra - 2

After the eventful day of Petra 1, I could barely move. It was clear that I had done way more that someone my age and in my condition should have undertaken. Brad and another athletic member of our group, decided to meet up with Tamam, once again to see the sights she promised to take them to that most tourists don't see. I told them to tell her that I was too old for that much adventure. Instead, I teamed up with Sherry, the Dean's wife who has been extraordinarily generous with her time and advise about how to navigate in the Holy Land, and the two of us, who are much more suited to a slower pace, decided to take on the trip to the High Place of Sacrifice of the Nabateans. It meant more climbing, but this time with no time restraints and at a more leisurely pace, better for those of us who are less vigorous. It was a very steep assent with lots of steps and lots of switchbacks, but we made good progress and arrived at what was supposed to be the High Place of Sacrifice, with some other travelers we'd joined on the way, but we couldn't find it. Everyone had a picture of what it was supposed to look like, but we couldn't see anything that resembled the picture. However, the view and the rock formations were spectacular, so it wasn't a complete disappointment. Just as we were ready to head back by the longer but less arduous trail, one of the kids yelled out, "Here it is. It's this little thing here." Sure enough. Everyone was looking for something large, like stonehenge or something, and what we found was about a yard in diameter. I guess one doesn't need a lot of room to sacrifice. The interesting part of the High Place was the channels etched in the rock for the blood and to carry away the water during the clean-up. There were a number or cisterns and places to channel run-off. I guess I'd never considered what all one might need for a sacrifice in such a remote setting especially if it were in high demand. We all took turns putting ourselves on the altar and taking silly pictures. I don't think we made very good sacrificial offerings, but it was worth a try.

The trip down from the High Place was terrific. I expected it to be mostly more desert/mountain scenery, and it certainly was that. But, along the way, there were many more buildings and artifacts to be discovered, which are not in the official park area. Many of them reflect the later influence of the Greeks, the Romans and the Byzantines, but there were also a number of original Nabatean tombs not usually seen on the pictures and in the guidebooks. I'll include a few in the pictures with this post.

We made it back to the floor of the valley in pretty good time. Sherry said she had had enough, hired a horse and took off for the hotel. I decided to stay a bit longer (I guess I'll never learn!) because I wanted to look more closely at the Great Temple on the valley floor which is being excavated and studied by Brown University. It is a massive building and one of the best preserved temples from the Greco-Roman era, although it was almost certainly Nabatean in its origins. I was planning also to look at the mosaics on one floor of one of the church ruins, when I realized that I'd waited too long, and was going to have to hustle if I was going to make my Turkish bath appointment at 4:00 pm. So, I finally gave in and hired a horse to get me out of there as fast as possible. It cost me five Dinar, about $7.50, and it was worth every penny.

I made it back to the hotel with 15 minutes to spare, and I was off again to the neighborhood Turkish bath. I hardly knew what to expect, except I knew that there would be steam, scrubbing and splashing. Well, it was certainly all that and quite a bit more. I've never encountered steam so thick that you can't see your hand in front of your face let alone find a place to sit. Prior to the scrubbing, there is an exfoliating with something like sandpaper, and the splashing tends to be with cold water, at least it was in my case. Then there was a massage, of sorts, not as good as I get in Clinton, but the intentions were commendable. To be fair, it think the attendant did a great job on me. When he was done, he rapped me in warm towels and pushed me out into the lounge, where the "host" was waiting with a large fan, turned up to high, a box of Q-tips, some other cleaning devices which I did not recognize, and a hot glass of aromatic tea. He then changed the channel on the T.V. from something in Arabic to CNN. The Arabs are always great hosts, unless they intend to kill you. I think I was just supposed to sit there until I was dry, but I wasn't patient enough to do that, so I got up, went into the dressing room and finished drying off and got dressed. When I came out, there was another glass of tea and a little pastry, which, of course, would have been rude of me to ignore. I thanked him, paid my bill (24 Dinar), left a tip for the scrubber, and returned to the hotel for a sumptuous dinner and a very clean night's sleep. I don't think I'm going to lose any weight on this trip!