Petra

In Petra. The entry fee of 55 JD = 55€ jenseits von Gut und Böse (a beautiful German expression, totally absurd fits it more or less) but worth it. I had known about the place since watching Indiana Jones 3 and was mesmerised by its out-of-this-world beauty ever since. The town seems to be in the middle of nowhere, in fact the whole town of Wadi Musa with all its restaurants, hostels and fallafel places seems to have evolved only very recently, since tourists have discovered the place. Having been in Jordan for just about 24 hours I can't say much about it, the roads are good, the prices steep and the shishas better than any I had in Egypt.

The ruins of Petra spread over a massive area, we covered only about a third of it in one day. What I like about it is that while there is a main path to follow to all the key attractions, you can easily leave it and explore yourself.

Right at the entrance. Lazier people rent horses, donkeys or horse carriages to go around. Tough people like me walk everywhere and feel dead tired when coming home.Most things in Petra are carved in the walls of the valley. Great light and amazing shadows to play with if you've got a camera.
Down the Siq, a narrow gorge to the most well-known building of Petra ...
... the Treasury. In fact it is (like most ruins here) a tomb. The Nabataeans who lived here and built the buildings more than 2000 years ago were nomads and lived in tents and structures that did not survive the centuries since their downfall through the Romans. The structures left are burrial and sacrificial places.
Waiting for the tourists to come.
It's hard to describe how vast the area is. What you see here is just a small portion of what you can explore. Here I just followed up a dustry trek to take this picture of this valley. The little black holes you see in the distance are entrances to caves, made millenia ago.
The entrances in the left hand corner from the former picture, closer up.
And here inside a cave. Somehow the sandstone has formed these incredible patterns of red, white, beige and black. Probably the most fascinating thing about Petra is that it is sometimes hard to tell who made what you are looking at ...
... like here, looking out of a "window" in one of the caves. Was this originally a solid wall, broken down by labourers 2000 years ago, did the floods that must have flown through Jordan and create the gorge grind down the stone or is this simply the result of the ravages of time?
Some tombs are in extraordinarily good condition. Hanna - my travel buddy for this journey - bringing some life to these dead stones.
And me just chilling with the desert behind me.