So the last week or so I've been talking to friends about wild adventures I want to go on (surprise surprise), all the while coming up with more locations for my growing bucket list. Yet an interesting question came up which tends to pop its head out every so often: why do I travel? My main go-to answer is for growth! I want to grow and experience life. I've never been a believer of living and dying in my hometown; the world is vastly bigger than Atlanta let alone the United States. One point was brought up though that I found interesting; it was suggested to me that perhaps I travel so much just to hide the fact I'm running away from things. I thought about that for a moment and for a second it did make sense; however I realized that there is a difference between fleeing from something and searching. Traveling helps me seek out things I otherwise wouldn't see at home: different lifestyles, views on life, foods, languages, customs, etc... I won't say that at some point in the past I wasn't running away from something, but thankfully life has a way of turning itself around when you put the effort into it. I hope not, but maybe at some future point I'll gallivant yet again to bring order to some chaos in my life, I don't know; but I do know that for now, globe-trotting truly does bring me peace through growth and helps to give me direction in my soul searching. So with the idea of searching and seeking in mind, I decided that for this week my wandering eyes have fallen onto Petra, Jordan; more specifically Al Khazneh. What makes this place so special on my list you may ask? Well let's travel back in time to an era in which Ipods, Androids and Playstation weren't born yet. (For some it would seem like something dating pre-Industrial Revolution you'd think.) It was 1989 when the great film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came to be. For those of us raised on VHS, you can see the scene in which I'm referring to by fast forwarding a minute or so while your VHS heads scream for mercy; or with the birth of the DVD, you can just look up the chapter. Ah, I just got a bit of a nostalgic moment. IMDB is the modern day movie cliff notes, so if you want to know what the movie is about just look it up there; it's painless I promise.
The temple in which the Holy Grail is supposedly housed in is Al Khazneh; it's the exterior shot shown of the temple before Indiana enters it. Now I've been scouring the net trying to find out if any indoor shots were also used of Al Khazneh or if it was just a set, but so far I've had no luck. Anyone who may know about it please chime in.I joke about the movie and the temple, but in all seriousness, the facade alone of the Treasury (the Arabic translation of the temple), is over two thousand years old!! The fact that it has survived for so long while being solely carved out of a giant (for lack of better words) rock face of sandstone is absolutely amazing. The Treasury, just like the Taj Mahal. was originally meant to be a mausoleum and crypt; presently it's morphed into a tourist stop while in the city of Petra. Now don't go in there trying to find the Grail, because I won't be able to help you pass all them trials now.
Much is beautiful at the site of Petra, not just the Treasury. The area became a UNESCO site in 1985, and there are still many on-going projects in the area that are being done to help maintain the integrity of the land. If you ever have a chance to visit Jordan, I highly recommend this site to be added to your list. You may not find the Holy Grail, or even Indiana Jones there, but perhaps you'll find something else in the Red City that you never thought you'd see... a bit of worldly history still ingrained in the body of Mother Earth just waiting to be seen, felt and appreciated.
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