The Land of Indiana Jones

Have you seen Indiana Jones - The Last Crusade? If not, go rent it. That is where I have been the past few days. The end of the movie, they go into this place that's carved into a cliff wall. It's called Petra.
The land has been occupied by many different people groups, including the biblical Edomits. Later, in the 6th century AD, Arabic nomads known as the Nabataeans lived in this land and built this beautiful city and tombs into the cliffs there.
To enter the area, you walk 2 km from the visitor center in through this beautiful gorge. When you get to the end, glimpses of the treasury begin to come into view. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I have to admit that it's sort of magical the way it appears in front of you.





But it's not just that one "structure." They built all through this gorge and the surrounding mountainsides and valleys. The expanse of it is truely amazing. I spent 2 days climbing thousands of stairs to expore different areas and didn't come close to seeing it all.
One of my favorite areas was the monestary, which was way up in a hillside.



From there you could climb up to a lookout point where I saw this sign.



The view from there looked over Israel. I found that somewhat curious.
I am no Idiana Jones. I didn't ride off into the sunset on my horse, but I feel like a Petra explorer all the same.

PS I added some pics to my post about the desert so check them out. Hope you enjoy!