Floods reveal Petra’s lost secret

Tourists travel the world to see temples and hike the ancient Nabatean trade routes

SIQ AL- BARID, Jordan — Recent heavy rains caused flash floods across the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, forcing authorities to close the gates of the famed Petra ruins to tourists who were soggy and surly from the downpour.

The iconic site boasts gargantuan temples, canals and statues carved into red cliff walls nearly 2,000 years ago by Al-Anbat, an ancient Arab culture now known as the Nabateans. But on that day, water surged dangerously fast past the ruins.

Yet still, a handful of adventurous tourists heard the siren call of the ancients, and struck out 9 kilometres north (5.6 miles) to Petra’s sister site, Little Petra.

Once, these sites were watering holes on the punishing desert route of traders laden with goods to the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Now, tourists travel the world to see the temples and hike the Nabatean routes recently connected to a 600-kilometre path called the Jordan Trail.

At Little Petra’s entrance, locals sold plastic ponchos and umbrellas to bands of shivering tourists. White mist poured over the mountains, obscuring the temples inside “the cold canyon,” Little Petra’s name in Arabic, Siq al-Barid.

A thin, submerged footpath through a crack in the rock was the only way in.

A French family gingerly waded across a gurgling gully swollen with mud. An elderly woman from Milan plodded down the canyon in shoes wrapped in plastic bags. The only warmth was the smoky hearth of Aouath Amarin’s hot mint tea served at his trinket shop atop a slick staircase at the end of the canyon.

“A lot of people never see it like this,” said Ian Weir, standing out of the rain inside one of the Nabatean temples next to friend Graeme Kinkead.

Kinkaid said the rain revealed the Nabateans’ long-lost secret.

They once carved channels and cisterns into the cliffs to catch and collect the arid region’s scant rainfall, “so that life was possible here,” he said.

With this water-wealth, the Nabateans securely straddled trade routes until Romans conquered the area.

What remains are ruins attracting tourists, roads used by hikers and locals, and cisterns still catching rain.

PHOTOS: SAM MCNEIL/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Hikers gaze across a valley at sheep grazing on a steep slope near the village of Beit Edis and the Roman ruins of Pella along the Jordan Trail.

The sun peeks out of rain clouds to light up Petra’s famous monastery in southern Jordan. The Nabatean ruins are famous worldwide.