My Mom’s Recipe Restaurant

Just like with accommodation in a highly touristy place, another natural thing was meeting dozens of options for food and not knowing which one to opt for. Just like the transportation, this question was largely solved by the generous invitation of Sleeman to dine with his family. Twice! The only restaurant we tried out was My Mom’s Recipe Restaurant – a very decent one but with prices a notch higher than the average.

As for the Petra site, despite the fact that we spent an entire day there, we only ate a tuna sandwich (for a very reasonable price!) with a glass of grenade juice. There are some food places on site but probably fearing overpriced tourist traps, we went for a safer option – a banana and a protein bar.

I’ll start with the accommodation in Petra. Accommodation options are not lacking there for obvious reasons, and as of January, most of them were available. The closer they are to the Petra site, the more expensive they are, so we opted for Marvel Hotel Apartments. It was a new family hotel with spacious nice rooms, and albeit I wasn’t enchanted by a somewhat pushy owner, we were still happy with this choice.

You might have a headache from an avalanche of beautiful glamping photos, bubble hotels, influencers in luxury settings, – by now we all have been familiar with this kind of image. I would like to add my two cents on the subject, even if we stayed in neither of these types of accommodation.

From what we saw from the road, and we passed by quite a large number of bubble hotels and so on, it didn’t look inspiring AT ALL. Rows of plastic bubbles in the middle of the desert – as a photographer, I KNOW how to make them look fancy, but it just didn’t feel like it. Also, given Jordan’s climate and geography, it has its water limits, so seeing hotels with fountains in the middle of the desert looked unreasonable and simply of bad taste. That’s the general impression.

As our hotel was in the “upper” city, going to Petra site would have to be done with a taxi (taking our bike was not an option considering the steep roads inside the town). However, we got an unexpected acquaintance in an unexpected way. In the first article about cycling in Jordan, I referred to finding someone who could receive our parcel with spare parts. We will be endlessly grateful to Sleeman for his technical help but also for taking us under his wing in Wadi Musa – he actually insisted on driving us both to and from Petra! Another manifestation of local hospitable nature and generosity.

The day of our visit in January 2025, the entrance fee to Petra for one day was 50JD. But! It was included in Jordan Pass. Another but! By the time we arrived in Petra, our Jordan Pass had already expired… That said, I don’t feel bad about paying for the tickets to Petra as the conservation and maintenance of the site costs a huge amount of money. Let it be our contribution to world heritage conservation…

Here comes a question that many visitors might ask – how many days to spend in Petra?

Although, once again, everything depends on your interests and pace, I can safely say that one full day, from the opening until the closing, is enough to see the major points of Petra, spend a decent contemplating moment, sketch and make a small hike until the furthest point – the Monastery. Moreover, we had an unwelcome adventure – I lost my bag with sketching equipment… I put it near an information stand for a picture and simply forgot to take it back – a quarter hour later, when I realized the loss, it was gone. So even with the time for searching, contacting the local authorities, driving here and there in small electric cars, slowly accepting the fact, one day was still enough for us to see everything we wanted to see.

You might wonder what else to do then on the site if there are multiple-days entry options?

First, there are much longer hiking routes that can easily take a full day. Second, it all depends on your immersion needs or a fatigue level. And lastly, one can spend eternity in front of the Treasury – it’s a timeless place and I understand the need to go there again and again.

The Siq

One of my greatest fears was potential tourist harassment and having to witness a lot of animal cruelty and indeed, we did get numerous offers to “rent” donkeys or camels, fake Nabataean coins were profusely on sale, but nothing too insisting or intrusive. Even though, the sight of camels was quite heartbreaking. An important point to consider is that Petra has its own inhabitants – the Bedouins, who have been living here for centuries. Petra is their home. So supporting them is kind of our duty as someone who comes to their home as a tourist. Just probably it’s best to do the way which is most comfortable – we chose grenade juice…

Camels (looking not too bad)

5 sec before losing my bag

Another of my fears were crowds of visitors (including us haha), but this didn’t happen either. The reasons: the off-season period, quite a cold weather – several days after we left, Jordan was swept by a huge cold storm! Thankfully, we were lucky enough to miss it!) and the new spiral of war in Israel / Palestine. Despite Jordan’s political non-involvement, its tourism received a blow…

The Monastery

Everything you hear about Petra and its effect on people who see it is true. It’s MESMERIZING. We are both down-to-earth people far from esoteric spirituality but such ancient places keep the trace of long-gone civilizations… Impossible not to tear up. So yes, may it sound mainstream and boring, but Petra is the most impressive thing we saw in Jordan. It is an astonishing and unique historical site, which, from what I had been told, makes the same knocking effect even on the locals.

Despite losing my sketching bag, accumulated fatigue, and questioning about this whole trip, a day in Petra remained a highlight of this adventure.