Jordan - Petra

Before meeting the service team in Jordan, we went down to check out Petra ... an ancient city dating back to ~300 BC.  The city was carved into the rock cliffs and has survived all these years.  Amazing to see!  Petra was where the final scenes to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed.  :-)

We randomly ran into friends in the hotel restaurant our first night and we had such a great time having dinner together, we decided to hike Petra together the following morning.  Their son Dylan is the same age as Nicholas, but I think he was taller than Jaden.  Are boys are so little!!

The hike turned out to be much longer than any of us expected.  We left the hotel at 7:30am and didn't get back until nearly 5pm.  It was one LONG walk!!!

Entering Petra with a short horse ride

Jaden & Nicholas with their friend Dylan

There were many horse and carriages as well as donkeys offering rides, but Jaden & Nicholas both wanted to walk

Rock looks just like an elephant!  :-)

Fossils in the rock

It was a very narrow path leading into the city

The pathway had troughs for water on either side to bring water into the city

our first glimpse of the treasury

Petra treasury...amazing!

They don't make banks like this anymore!

Further down from the treasury were all the caves where people lived.  Some entrances were plain, some were very ornate. 

ancient ampitheater

Dylan, Nicholas, and Jaden in front of ampitheater

Inside one of the larger caves.  All the marbling and various colors were natural from the various minerals found in the stone

Looking across at some of the more ornate caves (hard to see with our iphone pictures and looking into the sun)

Beautiful sky.  The short rock in the center looked like a camel

After a long walk, we begin to climb up to the monastary

We made it to the monastery, but the boys wanted to keep going up to check out the views

Top of the hill behind the monastary

Boys were excited they made it to the top!

A long walk down and back out.  I don't know how they still had the energy to climb this rock and slide down the smooth slope, but they did ... over and over again!  They said it was the ancient playground.  :-)