Petra, Jordan

If you haven't been to this potential new 7th Wonder of the World, you must go! Petra is the treasure of the ancient world, hidden behind an almost impenetrable barrier of rugged mountains boasting incomparable scenes that make it the most majestic and imposing ancient sight still-standing nowadays.

So back to my story... We drove to the border in Eilat and Matt's Israeli contact who works there, helped expedite us through customs and even drove us from the Israeli side across "no-man's land" and into the Jordanian border (about 200 yards). While it took us only a minute to drive across this unoccupied area, it was a huge help as we had 2 car seats, backpack, and more kids crap than was needed for an overnight trip. Once through customs at the Jordanian border, we met our hired driver, Saad, who picked us up and took us on the 1 1/2 hour drive to our hotel. It was easier to hire a car in Jordan rather than take our car as it would have required us to purchase Jordanian car insurance and entrance/exit fees that came close to what it cost us to hire Saad.

Saad gave us a detailed tour on the drive to the Marriott Hotel. Once there, he waited for us to check into our rooms, change clothes, and then drove us the additional 10 minutes to Petra. It was COLD and windy. Thankfully I had enough clothes to dress the girls in 4 layers of long sleeve shirts, sweaters, and jackets with hoods! We arrived at Petra around noon and asked Saad to pick us up around 5pm.

Petra is considered the most famous and gorgeous site in Jordan located about 262 km south of Amman. It is the legacy of the Nabataeans, an industrious Arab people who settled in southern Jordan more than 2000 years ago. Admired then for its refined culture, massive architecture and ingenious complex of dams and water channels, Petra is now a UNESCO world heritage site that enchants visitors from all corners of the globe. The Petra basin boasts over 800 individual monuments, including buildings, tombs, baths, funerary halls, temples, arched gateways, and colonnaded streets, that were mostly carved from the kaleidoscopic sandstone by the technical and artistic genius of its inhabitants.

I don't need to go into much more detail about our trip. Riley and Sheridan had a great time running around and we were in awe looking at the amazing structures. The highlight of Riley's day was riding in the white horsie carriage back up to the top.

Here are the photos from our trip.
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