Before completely leaving Petra and Wadi Musa, we started our day at Little Petra.

Little Petra (Siq al-Barid) is a small canyon north of Petra with a Nabatean site on a much smaller scale than Petra. It was likely established in the 1st century AD, although the area was inhabited for thousands of years prior. It has been proposed that Little Petra was a suburb of Petra that was repurposed into a caravanserai, where hundreds of camels and merchants traveling the ancient world stayed and exchanged goods.

This facade at the entrance likely held a statue of one of the Nabatean gods.

This is the entrance Siq to Little Petra

A triclinium. These are dining areas with benches on 3 sides.

Another triclinium. There were multiple that we could see, which goes along with it being an area for merchants and travel rather than homes.

The main portion of Little Petra.

This is the painted biclinium. This has some Nabatean wall paintings and frescoes. We were all staired out at this point and didn’t climb up to see.

Speaking of stairs, these were at the end of the canyon. Couldn’t find anything that says what’s at the end so we didn’t do these either.

Little Petra is worth a visit, but it is a very quick one compared to Petra.

From there we headed to Wadi Rum. 

Scenic overlook.

Before reaching there we stopped at the Al Hijaz steam train.

During WWI, the Ottoman Turkish Empire was using the Al Hijaz Railway to transport needed equipment. The Allies were trying to get the Turks out of the area so they enlisted the support of the Arabs who were assisted by Lawrence of Arabia (T. E. Lawrence). They undertook guerrilla tactics to disrupt this train line, repeatedly bombing and damaging the line. 

We made it to Wadi Rum. This is a valley between sandstone and granite hills. It is known for its red sand.

The village at the entrance to Wadi Rum. 

We got settled and then went out for a jeep tour of the valley. By jeep I mean the back of a truck with seats “built in.” My seat kept sliding around, just to make it more adventuresome!

Typical scenery.

We made various stops along the way.

In this tiny valley there are petroglyphs.

These are Kufic inscriptions. Kufic is a very early Arabic script.

Some of the sand was super fine, causing you to sink in when you took steps.

Some people were sand boarding at a couple of locations.

There are plenty of interesting rock formations.

This rock has weathered to have pox.

Mushroom rock

Nice to see flowers in the middle of the desert.

Camels near sunset.

As sunset approached we stopped to watch.