Road To Jordan: 10 things to know before exploring Petra
Ok, so you've charged your camera and don your fedora; you're now ready to explore the ancient city of Petra! Petra is to Jordan what the Great Wall is to China: you can't really go there and NOT stop by it. I'm not a huge advocate of doing extensive research before visiting a place or a country, mostly because I like to tackle each adventure with an open mind, and I because I find it way funnier and interesting to discover on the ground, as I go.
That being said, there are a few things I wish I'd known before I tackled Petra. Here's a list of 10 things that will help you get prepared without taking away any of the magic of discovering this epic city on your own.
1. GET THERE EARLY
The simplest way to get to Petra from Amman is by catching the 6.30am Jett bus from Abdali in the city centre, which drops you right at the site entrance. Granted, it's an early start, but it's a 4 hour journey to Petra so you want to make sure that you make the most of the day there. The bus costs 11JD ($15 / €12.60). You can either pre-book tickets or buy them at the kiosk before the bus takes off. I know that I have said that timetables are somewhat fexible in Jordan, but this is an exception. This bus waits for no one and will leave at 6.30am on the dot. It's also the only bus going there, so basically... be there on time.
If you're starting from Aqaba, you can hop on the 8.30am Jett bus near Kempinski Beach then it's a 2 hours drive to Petra. It costs 12JD ($17 / €15) one way or 20JD ($30 / €26.40) for a return ticket.
Don't kid yourself into thinking that Petra has a low season. The place will be swarming with tourists by the time you arrive at 10am, so if you're after that really neat shot of the Treasury, your best bet is to get to Wadi Musa the day before you're planning to visit and arrive there bright and early when the site opens at 6am.
2. STOCK UP ON WATER
Stock up on water. . You'll need an insane amount of it. You can buy it on site but as you may have guessed, the price is eye-watering and you need to keep that water in your body. Trust me, you don't know what real thirst is until you've been walking for 4 hours in the desert heat. Strangely enough, there is a fully air conditioned, super modern café bang on in the middle of Petra, after you've passed the colonnaded street. Normally, this is where I would go on a rant about building a modern structure in the middle of a 2000 year old city is a sacrilege, but that day I went in there on my knees and bought a gallon of water and a bagel.
3. RIDE A DONKEY!
The cheapest (and probably the best) way to get around Petra is on foot, but if walking isn't your thing, there is a surprisingly huge array of options when it comes to transportation. You can jump in a carriage and trot down the Siq (the winding canyon that leads to the Treasury), or hop on a horse and take the road to the surrounding cliffs for spectacular views of the entire city. From there, use the stairs carved into the walls to get back down to the city. I did it on my own and I felt like one of the last crusaders.
Once in, there is no shortage of mounts available for hire. A camel ride will set you back 20JD ($28 /€25), while the faster and more mobile donkey will cost around 10-15JD ($14 / €12). As with everything else in Jordan, you can haggle the price down. At the end of the day, waltzing around on a donkey is not the most dignified I've ever felt, but when it's 5PM, that your feet feel like they've been encased in concrete blocks and you have to climb down a mountain, that donkey will feel like a royal steed.
4. BRING COMFY SHOES
Petra is litterally carved out of a mountain. Several mountains in fact. Expect lots and lots of stairs, slopes, and paths going up, and down and even sideways. It will be hard on your feet, so bring along your comfiest, lighest pair of hiking boots or running shoes.
The visit varies between shady canyons, cool and dark temples, and large expanses drenched in sunlight, so you'll find yourself adding and removing layers often. Avoid short sleeves and shorts; you want to keep cool but you also don't want to burn to a crisp. Wear clothes that cover your body but let your skin breathe. Gear wise, keep it light: ONE camera (I brought 3 with me. At one point, I considered throwing 2 of them down a ravine), shades, a hat and a ruck sack large enough to carry your water supply is really all you need.
5. DON'T FORGET: PETRA IS HUGE!
For a lot of peeps, (me included before I visited it), Petra means the Treasury and the Monastery and not much else. They incorrectly assume that both temples are sitting next to each other, not knowing that it takes about 2 hours and a half to reach the Monastery from the Treasury. Fact is, Petra is so large that only parts of it are open to the public, and it would take several days to explore these parts. Allow at the very least 6-7 hours to see the basics: Treasury, Roman Theatre, Urn tombs, Colonnaded Streets, The Byzantine Church and The Monastery.
Wherever you go, don't forget to factor in the way back! It's a 2-3 hours journey back to entrance from the Monastery, so allow plenty of time for the way down, least you end up stuck on a mountain path as the lights dwindle with 2 American couples to whom you guaranteed to that the way down would be 30 minutes top (which totally did not happen to me)
7. CHECK OUT THE MONASTERY
Ok, that one is a really odd piece of advice. "Why would I come all the way to Petra and give the Monastery a miss?". Well, because the monastery is really far and fairly hard to reach. I have seen a lot of people turn back. The heat, the dust, and the sharp inclines made a lot of people simply give up and turn back. I came very close to do the same a couple of times. But I pushed through, and I don't regret it. There's a lot less tourists up there so you can take really great shots, and the views from atop are just spectacular.
8. SLEEP WITH THE BEDOUINS
Not in the biblical sense. If you're planning to spend the night in Wadi Musa, give the hotels a pass and spend the night in one of the many villages surrounding Petra (easy to find on AirBnB). Long story short: when Petra was granted the World Heritage status in 1982, the Bedouins still living in the site were relocated in villages around the site, and granted access to portions of Petra that were not open to the public.
So when you sleep with the inhabitant, not only you support their economy, but you also get to experience the fabled bedouin hospitality.
And if you get along with your host, maybe they'll even take you to parts of Petra that aren't open to the public and tell you stories by the campfire. I don't know. Maybe. It's possible. But that so did NOT happened to me. No Sir.
9. VISIT PETRA BY NIGHT
The best way to complete your Petra experience is to visit it at night as well. "Petra by Night" runs every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday of each week, starts at 20:30 and lasts for about 2 hours. You will have to fork out an additional 17JD (not included in the Jordan Pass), but in my opinion, it's worth it.
So what's included in the visit? First, you get to walk down to the Treasury, with only the flickering light of a thousand candles and the stars above. Pretty magical in its own right. What's fascinating is how different it looks from the path you walked by daylight.
Once at the treasury, you sit down and enjoy music and storytelling. If you really want to know what it must have felt like to reach the greatest city of the Nabatean empire, this is your ticket.
SO PETRA... YAY OR NAY?
A million times YAY! I've done my fair share of travelling and to this day, nothing has come close to the feeling I experienced when I explored to the Rose-Red City. Petra is a magical archeological site that has attracted visitors from around the world since its rediscovery in 1812.
It's hard to find fault, but here's the good, the bad and the crazy
YAY: EVERYTHING?
Everything was just so great, from start to finish that it's really hard to single out one moment over the others, but if I had to choose I guess riding a horse on the cliffs surrounding the city was pretty epic.
NAY: BEING CONSTANTLY PRESSURED TO BUY SHIT I DON'T NEED
I get that for a lot of people, this is their bread making job, but the constant pestering to buy souvenirs, camel rides and whatnot can get to one's nerves. Didn't really spoil the visit though, so no harm done.
HUH: NABATEAN LEPRECHAUNS?!
Legend has it that the big ass urn at the top of the Treasury was full of gold. The bedouins used to shoot it in the hope of breaking the pot and collecting the jackpot
What's your Petra experience? Did I miss anything? Leave your comments below and happy travels! x