It was breathtaking walking down the Siq. There are some areas where you can see where the cliffs had been joined; the Siq was actually formed by an earthquake and not erosion as most people suspect. Along the Siq are cobbles that remain from the original road. You could also see the remains of the water diversion and channel system they used to get the water into the city. When you finally make it out of the Siq, there in all its glory is the Treasury - I'm sure you reconize it from Indiana Jones, Transformers (Rise of the Fallen), etc. :)
We couldn't go in but supposedly it is like the other buildings that we were allowed into; a big square room with some tombs carved into the floor. So, boring on the inside (except for the neat colored rock patterns), but with a very elaborate front.
We looked around a theatre cut out of the rock and built over 2000 years ago (left). We also made the climb to the "High Place of Sacrifice" (middle - in the middle of the picture at the top you see a table looking formation and to the right is the obelisk). The obelisk (right) at the top is cool because it was carved out of the rock rather than built upon it. There was also a cool geocache here.
We wound our way down the other side of the mountain and found more and more tombs. Some were finely carved but many were just a hole (door) in the solid rock wall with a square chamber behind. The colours in the rock walls were absolutely amazing.
We were able to go into the Royal tombs. The Urn tomb was probably built around AD 40. Outside is where all the work was done and then inside is a huge room with very small tombs carved deep into the floor. You could also see the smoke stains on the ceiling from it being used as a living space at a later date.
We really enjoyed the fact that we could explore at our leisure. The only sad part was that there was graffiti and garbage in most, some of the tombs were used to house the donkeys, and some were still being used as living quaters by local inhabitants selling trinkets.
Patrick wanted a sand bottle as a souvenier so we were able to watch the guy make them. They used all natural coloured sand found in Petra and man were they quick.
It was a tiring two days with some very tired little kids (and big kids too) but what a wonderful visit. We didn't get to see everything because there was so much to see but we saw some pretty awesome things.
Tomorrow we start our journey down to Wadi Rum via Little Petra and then on to our New Year's camp out!
