"It sure is beautiful though."
"It sure is."
My friends and I were staring at the Monastery, one of the lesser-known Nabatean ruins in Petra. At that moment, we already knew our visit to the rose-red city would be the highlight of our visit to Jordan. We were also already getting ready to leave the Monastery behind though, as we had to be back at the bus at 4pm and still had an entire ancient city to explore. We quickly drank our water and started down the path of 1000 steps again. By then, only two others from the group we were traveling with had made it to Ad Deir. The thought of all those other people never seeing the Monastery made me sad. Sad and determined not to let a single second of my time in Petra go to waste.

We arrived back at the start of the climb to Ad Deir just in time for lunch - a necessary evil. Even though I was starving, I didn't enjoy the buffet much and was glad to hit the road again. The sun was now in such a position that we could take awesome pictures of the Treasury. The place was lively now, but also full of wonder. One picture wasn't enough. Two pictures weren't enough. Al Khazneh hypnotized me and I had to take picture upon picture upon picture. When I was finally happy with my shots, I put my camera down and sighed: "It sure is beautiful though."
"It sure is," my friends replied.


We continued admiring Nabatean architecture all over the valley. I was burning to a crisp, but found serious sunburn a worthy price to pay for all the adventures and beautiful sites Petra had to offer. My friends and I were like kids in a candy store.
"Look at that!"
"D'you think we could get up there?"
"We still have time to visit the Royal Tombs."
"This place is unbelievable."
"It sure is beautiful though."
"It sure is."

Time was on our side that day. We had hiked all the way to the Monastery, risked our lives for the perfect picture of the Treasury (but that's a story for another day) and still found time to walk up and down the Colonnaded Street. We paused at the Theatre, the Great Temple and Qasr al Bint. Our last stop of the day was at one of the Royal Tombs. Since my friends and I had chosen to go to the Monastery first, we'd missed out on a guided tour of this place. Missing out on it entirely was not an option though. As with our hike, we picked the wrong path at first, but eventually found ourselves inside the tombs. It was a bit on the dark side, but still light enough to see the many colors of the rock inside of which we were standing. The walls were yellow and red, the ceiling blue, white veins snaked through all colors.
"It sure is beautiful though, isn't it?"
"It sure is."


We didn't have much time left after our visit to the Royal Tombs, so we decided to head back to the Treasury and make the most of our last few minutes in the city. I bought some souvenirs and we had ice cream to make our perfect day even better. We hung around for as long as possible before we entered the Siq again with heavy hearts. I would have loved to spend another day in Petra. Even though it seemed like we'd seen everything there was to see, the little tourist map in my pocket revealed many more trails to hike. I wanted to do all of them, but had to rush back to the bus already.
We didn't hurry through the Siq when we noticed we were running a little late though. We'd had to wait for other people in the past 8 days for far dumber reasons than being enchanted by beautiful surroundings. So we walked, walked, took pictures and enjoyed every moment. Petra deserved is, because it sure is beautiful.

By the time we left the Siq, my legs were shaking with exhaustion. A handy phone app told us we'd walked over 20 kilometers that day. I couldn't walk faster than my half-crippled grandma anymore, and I wasn't the only one who was struggling at this point. Since we were already late now anyway, we took a bathroom break before going back to the bus. As we'd expected all day, we were the last to arrive there, all of 12 minutes late. The rest of the group wasn't very happy with us, but I couldn't care less. I sat down contently, still daydreaming about Petra. My friends and I looked at each other the way only people who've seen something special together can.
"Petra sure was beautiful though."
"It sure was."