The Many Dimensions of Jordan

Sometimes it’s good to have one place in a country that you want to see so dearly that you don’t care what else is on the trip. That one thing justifies the trip and the rest is just gravy.

Then, for the remainder of the trip, you are learning about things you never knew about – and would not have traveled overseas to see. But you find that they are valuable experiences that you are happy to have had.

The Giza Plateau that supports the Great Pyramids of Egypt is one of those places. That one, single experience is worth any trip. The three pyramids are so dazzling, so out-of-this-world colossal, that they can make your head spin for days, and give you a sense of wonder that will never entirely leave you. It will give you one incomparable slot in your memory that you will be able to savor for the rest of your life.

There are many others, of course. Machu Picchu was like that for me. Just to see that place once in person was a desire that glowed fervently in me until I was finally able to fulfill my wish. And as magical as the pictures and stories are, when I went there, the actual place exceeded them by orders of magnitude.

Petra is one of those places. Visiting the Lost City of Petra in Jordan is one of those experiences that will stretch the limits of what you thought possible. It’s hard to believe when you are looking upon the amazing temples with Greco-Roman-style Corinthian columns, carved into sandstone cliffs in fastidious detail.

Even as you stand in front of the Great Temple, or the Monastery or the Treasury, it is hard to believe that human beings had managed to create something so monumental, and so perfectly crafted, while casting aside virtually all the norms of building around the world. They built them in the negative. The process was reversed from the way the Greek and Roman temples had been constructed. Instead of placing solid objects in space, they hollowed out spaces in solid rock. The end result appears to be almost a perfect replica of Greco-Roman architecture, but carved out, not built up. It was ingenious in conception and even more impressive in its spectacular execution. It’s practically unimaginable, but they did it, as you can see with your own eyes in Petra.

As with any magnificent sight, photographs don’t do it justice. Films add a third dimension, via motion. But no medium comes close to showing what you experience in this mysterious lost city.

You approach it through…