Shalom,
Randal has spent the afternoon cooking up a storm. He’s making falafel, Randal version and salmon egg baskets that he learned in a cooking class in Thailand 12 years ago. I’m staying out of the galley! This morning I went for a walk on the beach and by 9 am it was jammed packed with lots of families and people of all ages. I’d worn my flip flops over from the marina so I could walk in the water. I only need to do that once as lots of it has lots of little pebbles and shells. I got used to it so by the way back hardly noticed. But next time, shoes.
This is my final Petra email. It really is just a small bit of what there is to see, but hopefully you get the idea. Bruce Feiler made the comparison between the Jews of the time who survived leaving no structures behind and the Nabataens who have "disappeared" leaving structures behind. The Nabataens were good at mixing with other cultures and the Jews tried very hard not to do that. Maybe that’s what happened, the Nabataens just mixed themselves in and became part of something else which is, I guess, one way to disappear.
"It is not known when exactly Petra was built, but the city began to prosper as the capital of the Nabataean Empire from the first century BC, which grew rich through trade in frankincense and myrrh, along with spices from Yemen. Petra was later annexed to the Roman Empire and continued to thrive until a large earthquake in 363 AD destroyed much of the city in the fourth century AD. Many buildings were never rebuilt after this, although not long after that event Petra was designated the seat of a Byzantine bishopric. However, the earthquake combined with changes in trade routes, eventually led to the downfall of the city which was ultimately abandoned; by the middle of the seventh century Petra appears to have been largely deserted and it was then lost to all except local Bedouin from the area."http://www.petrapark.com/setting-and-history
Ru
DoraMac
ps I know it is Indiana Jones and not Indian Jones which Randal told me I did twice!
Petra # 5
Water system in the Siq along the walls used to conserve water and prevent flooding.
I wasn’t so fascinated by them for some reason but my “brother” Ken asked about them so here is a photo. He has visited Petra and was fascinated by them.
Excavations at Petra Church
“Superbly detailed 6th century AD mosaics adorn the aisles of this once large Byzantine basilica. A cache of 152 scrolls found here revealed details of daily life in Byzantine Petra.” Eyewitness Jerusalem
Sifting for ancient relics in the church.
Restoring the mosaics.
Randal has become fascinated by mosaics and wants to learn to make his own! Maybe his will have cars and bicycles as symbols of what is important to him.
For the Byzantine people, other things were important.
Roman Petra entering the Cardo
The Romans annexed Petra in AD 106.
Photos of some of the people who earn their living within Petra Park.
I could hear the music even at a distance…..
It was quite lovely so I paid my money and took my photo and helped him earn a living.
Modern Bedouin cowboys or donkey taxi drivers as they call the donkeys air conditioned taxis.
And then there were the camels….
A camel pretzel.
We ate two really good meals in Petra. The first night we plopped ourselves down in the hotel lobby and the manager sent out for chicken doner take out for us! The second night we had falafel and grilled vegetables and chicken and tabouli and way too much food. But that didn’t stop an after dinner visit to the bakery to check out what we might want the next morning.
Flying pita waiting for customer pick-up, the actual bakery must have been upstairs.
The bakery also giant, wonderfully smelling pancake flying saucers coming down from above.
We left our Petra hotel about 9:30 am and were driven to the border. It was a pretty simple process to leave Jordan (pay and exit fee) and enter Israel. We have heard people complain about the strict, scary Israeli border security, but we’ve not encountered any of it. We did pass the remains of a beach complex in Tel Aviv that had been destroyed by a suicide bomber in 2001. It is now a memorial. There is a reason for the security.
Lunch on a Yotava Kibbutz famed for its dairy.
We ate shakshuka ( eggs, tomatoes, onions wonderful!) and a cauliflower dish that tasted like it had been simmered with onions and spices and was wonderful. Their ice cream choices looked spectacular but we, with some yet untapped will power) all took a pass. They had lots of jars of things in their shop but none had English subtitles so we took a pass. Not speaking Hebrew in Israel is much like not speaking Chinese in China; you can get along but you definitely miss a lot and have to constantly rely on the kindness of strangers.
Half way home we encountered a sand storm.
We went from blue sky to no sky and low visibility. Like driving through a snow storm but not as dangerous as the roads don’t get slick.
So, that’s it!