Africa & Middle East > Jordan > Petra > Petra > Articles > Walking to Petra

I’m on my way to Petra, and find that I’m slithering down a canyon to get there. Call it a roundabout kind of approach, but if there’s one thing I know as I descend this riverbed staircase of rocks and waist-deep pools, one of some 75 such canyons that drain into Jordan’s Shara Mountains, it’s that I won’t be using the usual air-conditioned coaches to arrive at the ‘rose-red city’.

The fabulous forgotten capital of the Nabataean kingdom in the mountains of southern Jordan has been a must-see on every traveller’s hit list ever since explorers first stumbled upon its rock-hewn facades and theatres, tombs and temples early in the nineteenth century. But with improved access to the site, particularly via the featureless Desert Highway from Amman, there is a real danger that Petra will fall victim to modern tourism’s notoriously short attention span. Most visitors now fit in a whistle-stop tour of the place, along with the statutory camel ride and swoop for souvenirs, before heading on to Aqaba or Wadi Rum, even to Eilat in Israel or Taba in Egypt. Our group, a mix of old Petra hands and excited first-timers, have decided that this won’t do and the good news is that a British operator, Walks Worldwide, agrees. The company has created a walking itinerary through the country’s spectacular hinterland to culminate at the site - the perfect blend of culture and outdoor adventure. We’ll be taking our time getting to Petra along the Nabataean Trail, a magnificent meander of a walker’s route newly created from grazing tracks and Bedouin migration routes.

It starts with this spectacular canyon descent below the splendid Crusader castle way to the north of Petra at Shobak. The canyon’s banks are lined with pink oleanders and the sheer sandstone walls patterned with multi-coloured seams of iron, copper and magnesium. Crag martins are surfing the gloaming by the time we squelch to the foot of the canyon. A short walk leads us to the new eco-lodge at Feynan on the edge of the Dana Nature Reserve. We pass through gated walls (which recall Beau Geste) to the spacious, candle-lit interior. There are stylishly simple rooms with solar-heated showers and dinner is a spread of Arabian culinary exotics, aubergines stuffed with walnuts and chilli, fava bean dips, lightly fried courgettes and steaming heaps of rice. Afterwards, there is coffee on the roof-terrace beneath a vast star-stippled sky.

In the morning, we hoist our day sacks and set out across the vast Wadi Araba (Valley of the Arabs). The plain may be empty except for the goats and camels, but Yamaan provides rich historical company. We are in the lands of the Old Testament Edomites, he explains. It was here that Moses led the Israelites, who complained about the local bread and lack of water (not something that we, with our dedicated support team of willing tent-pitchers, chefs and packed-lunch suppliers, should have reason to do). He points out the ashlar footings and occasional arches, which are all that remain of the churches the Byzantines built to commemorate the early Christian martyrs whom the Romans worked till they dropped in the region’s notorious copper mines. Yamaan also provides splendidly refreshing herb tea to complement our lunches which we take in the shade of occasional acacia trees.

There is more mint tea, strong and sweet, when we arrive at our mobile tented camp which will greet us at the end of each walking day. There may be nothing luxurious about our communal sleeping arrangements, a spacious, open-fronted Bedouin tent with bedrolls and sleeping bags, but it’s a wilderness experience to remember. There’s not another soul within miles, al fresco cold showers at a nearby canyon waterfall, a filling and tasty campfire dinner of chicken stew and rice and the moonlit silence of the desert night, broken only by a wolf calling from the canyons in the early hours.

Our onward route leads through the mountains. There are exhilarating, sometimes challenging day-long hikes along hillside paths which some local Bedouins – the ones who have not yet acquired pick-up trucks - still use to move their livestock to the summer pastures. But we are a few weeks ahead of their seasonal migrations and for five days we do not see a single human being. There are buzzards and griffon vultures, though, and herb-scented hillsides of juniper and desert broom, ancient stone traps where leopards were caught a century ago and valley streams where we cool our feet among the hoof marks of rare, shy ibex goats. Yamaan talks of the Nabataeans, a merchant people who for centuries defied the Romans from their influential position upon the trade route to the East. We’re closing upon their great capital at Petra, and not just geographically, for it’s sneak-previewed in the ancient, rock-cut water channel which leads us one morning to the ruins of the village it once served, in the deeply gouged canyons and in the colours and shapes of the surreal eroded sandstone which overhangs our path like molten wax or fresh tears.

And now we’re arriving. Most visitors must filter the ticket queues, ranks of tour buses, trinket stands and haggling caleche drivers from their all-important first impression of Petra. But we bypass all this by using a barely used back route into the site which leads us along a mountain path, with giddying views of the Wadi Araba below. We round a final bend to find ourselves before the most spectacular of Petra’s many monuments, the super-sized facade of the mountain-top Monastery with its carved columns and capitols and its soaring portico topped by a gigantic finial urn.

It’s only later in the day, as we explore the royal tombs with their colourfully weathered facades, the churches and the remarkable theatre that I realize what else the walk has done – it’s toughened us up for Petra’s punishing contours and fierce temperatures. We’re among the last to leave, and as we walk up the Siq, the narrow gorge entrance to the city, we know we won’t forget this place. By the right approach, we’ve made sure of that.

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