Kindness of Strangers

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Our primary destination in Jordan was Petra, a remarkably-preserved ancient city carved into rose-colored limestone, three hours south of Amman. Petra was once inhabited by the Nabataeans, Arabs who dominated the region around the time of Christ. It’s a remarkable site: just last year, it was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World (along with Machu Picchu and Taj Mahal, two sites we will visit on our trip around the world).

When we arrived in Jordan a week ago, the country was experiencing a heat wave. “It’s not usually this hot this late in the year,” people kept telling us. We waited for the thermometer to drop before setting off to Petra, but after three days in Amman, the temperatures were holding steady in the high 90s. “I’ve done Petra in the summer and it’s a killer,” one man said, “but you gotta do it.”

Most people associate Petra with the ornate pink-stone facade of The Treasury – it was represented as the site of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – which is magnificent. The approach is equally dramatic. After walking down a narrow canyon, known as The Siq, you round a bend to reveal a sliver of the pink facade, framed by the jagged walls. One can’t help but gasp at that first unexpected glimpse.

But there is more to Petra than The Treasury. Many people visit Petra on half-day tours, and never bother to explore much beyond the primary sites that line Petra’s main avenues. It’s understandable in the late summer heat, when getting off the beaten track often means scrambling up steep stone steps, worn dangerously smooth by thousands of years of use, as the midday sun threatens to addle your brain. We hiked 14 miles over two blistering days, consuming liters of water that resulted not in full bladders but cascades of sweat: our pores were leaky faucets. But towards the end of our first day of exploring Petra’s quintessential sites, I saw something that convinced me to run as fast as possible off the beaten path.

Petra is home to multiple forms of alternate transportation, and I’m not talking about hybrid cars. Local guides will ferry you by horse, donkey, carriage, or even camel from one site to another for a fee, ranging from 2JD to 10JD. (As a result, Petra’s cobbled streets are lined not only with history but grass-green piles of animal waste.) Guides lurk around every corner with promises of “air conditioned taxis.” We got very good at politely declining a ride for lack of funds, to which one 12-year-old guide, looking curiously like Captain Jack Sparrow, responded, “No money, no honey.” Personally, I would rather save my money for a great dinner, but people seemed to be thrilled at the prospect of riding a smelly animal.

As the afternoon sun bore down, we took a seat just beyond one of the “taxi” stands, having just sang our chorus of no-thank-yous. Meanwhile, an older man and his wife were negotiating a ride. His snowy hair perched upon a gleaming, tomato head. A navy blue polo shirt was stretched taut over his belly, which sat just above his khaki shorts, filled by legs that supported a tube of white from knee to toe. We watched in amazement as the guide selected the smallest animal from his fleet, a donkey that looked as if it might blow over should a gust of wind whoosh by.

The man slung his tennis shoe into the stirrup, then heaved himself over the animal. The donkey’s back bowed as it let out a low groan. The man looked just as unhappy as the donkey. A group of onlookers snickered as a crowd formed around the man; the donkey wobbled back and forth, his little knees buckling. Even from a distance I could see the blind panic on this man’s face. After the donkey took a few tentative steps, the man pulled himself from the donkey, clutching his wife’s arm for dear life. As he quickly shuffled off in the other direction, regaining his balance, two things happened.

One: the guide ran after him, asking him for money for his 10 second ride. When the man shooed him away with the the arm that supported by his wife, the guide offered another, larger animal. Two: as he continued to walk away, a swarm of guides descended, offering their clearly superior horses and, should he be saddle-shy, camels. But nothing could persuade the man to get back on an animal, no matter how hot or tired he may have been.

I refuse to get on these animals not only because of cost, but because it represents the passive travel experience. Visitors are encouraged – and want — to be carted around from location to location, silent observers who flit through the site but never really soak anything in. These mechanisms also have a way of making tourists look like total rubes. The man on the donkey was not unlike a large man wearing a very small hat: ridiculously incongruous. The guides, predominantly local Bedouin whose traditional ways of making a living have been largely displaced by tourism, are simply trying to work, but the whole system creates an unfortunate tension between the two parties.

As the sun sank behind the clouds, casting a welcome shadow over the valley, we decided to break away from the crowds and make the arduous climb to The Monastery. Larger but less accessible than The Treasury, it sees only a fraction of Petra’s daily visitors. The site required a steep hike up a narrow stone staircase that wound its way around a rocky mountain, where a herd of shaggy black and white goats temporarily blocked the path, their bells softly tinkling. Even out here smatterings of tea gardens dotted the hillside, as Bedouin women encouraged us to buy their jewelry. When we rounded the bend at the top of the hill we saw it: towering sandy columns stretched skyward, less ornate but every bit as impressive as The Treasury. There wasn’t a person in site to block the view. I honestly expected Moses to pop out of the doorway.

Having an improved experience off the beaten path, we spent the second day away from the hustle and bustle. We woke early to enter Petra through a narrow canyon, requiring us to dodge massive boulders like gymnasts. The rising sun blinked behind the mountains as local men on horseback ambled over the rocky terrain. No one offered us a ride. “I guess they’re on their way to work,” Maikael said.

We climbed to the Place of High Sacrifice, whose name tells it all: you can still see the large troughs that were once used to siphon animals’ blood. On the way up, an ancient Bedouin woman took my hand and guided me towards the figure of a lion carved into the stone. She smiled at me through ragged teeth and yellowed glasses; faded indigo tattoos marked her face.

As we made our descent, heavily spiced aromas filled the air. Bedouin tea. A small family circled a crackling fire, beckoning us to sit down for a cup. Were it not for the din of the tourists below, quickly coming into earshot, we might have.