HistoryNewThe Treasury Before the Crowds
4.5 (137)
Petra, Ma'an Governorate
4 hours · by Petra Footsteps
JOD 45
/ person
Nobody enjoys a four o'clock alarm. Everybody is glad of it by half past six. Jordan runs hot and busy from about nine, so the first two hours of daylight are where the good version of every site lives - Petra with nine people in it instead of nine hundred, Jerash before the coach park fills, Dana's escarpment while the birds are still noisy. Bring a fleece: the desert and the Dana highlands are genuinely cold before dawn, even in June, and the tea will not arrive for another hour.
6 entries
01.
In at six, through the Siq in the dark, at the Treasury while it is still in shadow.
02.
The coaches from Amman land at ten. For three and a half hours before that, the Oval Plaza is yours.
03.
The camels leave before the sun clears the eastern ridge, and the sandstone changes colour while you ride.
04.
Ghor Haditha's sinkholes are the Dead Sea's shrinking made visible. Four hours, unnerving, and far better before the heat.
05.
Dawn is not optional for birds. Three hours on the escarpment while Rummana is still cold enough for a fleece.
06.
Two and a half hours along the rim as the light drops into a 400-metre gorge. Twenty dinars.
