Petrified in Petra (2)

Even after our traumatic scramble over the cliffs, I still had a yen to see Petra from above – not to mention exploring Wadi Muthlim, the dry river canyon that forms a route into the site.

And Z was still curious, too.

So, equipped with our guide, we set out for a scramble down the river.

What could possibly go wrong?

Petra is especially beautiful in May, when pink oleanders bloom around the site, and smaller wildflowers too, and even with the grey skies above, it’s a pretty walk.

All of a sudden, Z sounds alarmed.

“Mum!” he says. “I think I felt rain.”

“What?” I say. “That can’t be rain. I didn’t feel any.”

Then I feel a slight moist tingle on my arm, not so much a drop of rain, as the promise of a drop, barely enough to notice. “I think we should go back,” says Z.

“Nah,” I say. “It’ll be fine. We have Shadi with us…”

The wadi narrows quite dramatically, into a canyon of the kind we climbed in the Sinai, littered with rocks swept down in previous floods.

“Mum!” says Z. “I definitely felt rain.”

I feel it two. Just a couple of spots. But enough…

“Shadi!” I say. “Can you feel the rain?”

“Yes,” he says. “We should hurry. This is a bad time for flash floods. And it might be raining in the mountains.”

“Right,” I say, taking a deep breath. “How long before the water gets down here? If it is raining up there?”

“30 minutes,” he says.

“And how long will it take us to get out of the wadi?” I ask.

“20 minutes, if we walk fast,” he says.

Which means, I assume, fast by Bedouin standards…

“Z!” I say. “We need to walk fast.”

“I know,” he says. “I heard.”

Shadi sets off through the canyon at an impressive pace, Z scrambling after him and, as I scramble over a boulder, one of my cheap Egyptian flip flops chooses this moment to give up the ghost.

I fix it. It breaks again.

By now Shadi and Z are a long way ahead of me.

I remove my useless shoes and hop from sharp stone to sharp stone in a painful, pacy hobble.

I’m straining to move faster — I’m breathless with it, in fact — but I can’t quite overcome the fear of pain on landing and make the pace I would if I had shoes.

The walls narrow yet further, and darken, with the darkening skies.

Six or seven metres above my head, caught between walls little more than shoulder-width ahead, is a boulder. Brought down, as I know full well, in a flash flood.

A clap like thunder resonates high above. More spots of rain.

I know, intellectually, that we would be unlucky to be caught, and we should have time to get out.

But the thunder absolutely terrifies me.

I catch up with Z as he delays over a 3-metre descent down a boulder.

“Drop!” I say. “Just drop! Shadi’s going to catch you. He has his arms out!”

He drops. I’m too heavy for catching, of course, so I have to scramble. It feels almost unbearably slow.

“Just keep moving,” I say. “I’ll catch you up.”

One of my feet is bleeding.

A dull roar in the distance.

Z stops and turns to me.

“It’s OK,” I say. “It’s just a plane! Now, GO!… How much further?”

“15 minutes, maybe 10, if we’re fast,” says Shadi. “We need to hurry.”

The wadi widens a little, to a couple of metres wide, and oleanders reappear. I look at them, their roots amazingly surviving in this rocky ground, and wonder what a flash flood does to them. They must survive it, I guess – they are built for it.

We, of course, are not.

And since the car crash, from which my wounds are still open, I’ve been acutely aware of our vulnerability.

The wadi tightens again, its walls looming in towards us, all beauty lost in a moment of claustrophobia.

Another big boulder takes time to descend, the walls so tight I have to conduct an awkward, twisting chimney. It’s only later that I notice I’ve ripped the skin off the inside of my arm.

Adrenaline is coursing through me, the primeval flight mode that dates back to the African savannah, tens of thousands of years ago.

I remind myself that it’s highly unlikely that there will be a flood, and that we are, most likely, in time to escape it.

But I look at the narrow walls, their swirling shapes sculpted by millennia of sudden floods.

How high would the water rise as it raced down this narrow channel? How much warning would we have?

Would we need to climb 10 metres, 15 metres, to escape it? What if the rain in the mountains started earlier than we think?

Z is waiting for me. My bare feet are slowing me, much as I’m trying to ignore the discomfort. “Go ahead with Shadi,” I say.

My brain is listening for the roar of water, half-hearing it.

And then the wadi widens. Blissfully, mercifully.

And we are into Petra.

Shadi, Z and I head up the gentle banks to a position safely above the riverbed.

This is, I realise, the fastest I have ever seen Z walk.

“You know,” Shadi says, as we light cigarettes and I chug gallons of water. “In 1977 we lost fourteen tourists in a flash flood. One tourist and a policeman survived. Only one.”

“I can imagine,” I say.

“I wasn’t worried about me,” he says. “I can climb. I was worried about you.”

“I know,” I say.

“A man from my village, one time, he was sleeping with his camel in a wadi,” Shadi says. “And he saw a frog pick up her baby and carry it out of the wadi. So from that he knew a flood was coming. And he took his camel, and he climbed out of the wadi. That was how he knew.”

Later, we climb to the top of the crusader castle, built by one of the shortlived European dynasty that called themselves Kings of Jerusalem.

It does my vertigo no favours. But I am, I think, less scared than I was walking down the river bed…

And it is worth it for the view across the mountains.

A NOTE ON VISITING PETRA

If you’re planning on visiting Petra yourself, here is how I would do it.

On day 1, buy a ticket at the entry gate but start at the smaller site of Little Petra (you will need a guide and a lift to the site), then walk through the mountains to the Monastery at Petra. Descend to explore the old town and museums, and leave by the rear exit.

On day 2, approach down the siq for the classic view of the Treasury, scramble around the Royal Tombs, check out the Byzantine mosaics and walk out via Wadi Muthlim (unless it looks like rain!). The river bed starts behind the Royal Tombs and is quite obvious but be prepared for climbing.

On day 3, come late in the day to appreciate the walk down the siq and the Treasury glowing pink in the late afternoon. Ascend to either the Crusader Castle, the High Place of Sacrifice or (possibly) the site above the treasury to watch the sunset.

If you only have one day, don’t miss the Siq, the Treasury and the Monastery, and get at least one aerial view of the site. This will involve a lot of steps.