In the footsteps of Indiana Jones

Today was a chance to visit in daylight one of the new seven wonders of the world. We started early with a 2 km walk through a gorge some 30-50metres high and only 2-3 metres wide at times. The path winds its way down through a number of tombs, carved niches with gods, a pipeline system to collect water and brightly colored sandstones. The light reflecting off it all was spectacular. Then came the famous turn with the treasury building becoming visible. Wow. It is better in real life than on the Indiana Jones film. We passed the treasury and then discovered a second smaller gorge which led to an amazing landscape of hundreds of tombs cut into the rock face, some of them even bigger and more spectacular than the treasury building. The sandstone was colored in reds, oranges, whites, yellows, blacks and greys. There was no need for paint here. The path led us past many bedouin people trying to sell anything and everything. J2 met a Kiwi woman who had married a bedouin and lived on one of the caves in this valley. They have now been moved out (except 6 or so famiies). We went on a secret back path and met one of the few remaining people living in the region. He gladly made sage tea for us and we sat and shared the silence. This left us charged for a climb up some 860 steps to another royal tomb called the monastery. The degree of difficulty in the climb is at times significant with rampaging donkeys being led or running past us. The views from the climb up some 750meters onto the Jordan valley and beyond were spectacular. Then it was all back the same path to lead back home. Quite a special place and the size of it was surprising. We were both staggered by the degree of building of rock cut tombs, the immense range of colours and the size of the site. It deserves it's claim as a new member of the seven wonders of the world.