After last night's walk to the Treasury at Petra by Night, V did not feel confident in her ability to walk the distances required to explore the site properly, about 5k to get to the end of the track which passes through the Siq, past the Treasury and and past a number of tombs and monuments ending at the trail which begins the 800 steps leading up to the top of the Monastery heights. The return to the gate is over the same ground, but uphill in the return direction and in the heat of the day after having hiked around exploring the site. V decided that she would to take a horse-drawn carriage to the end of the trail and then walk back, the carriage meeting us at the Treasury for the last stretch. I reluctantly chose to join her as I was not keen to use the scrawny and over-worked horses and mules that are available for hire but I knew that V would simply not be up to the walk.

We were at the gate at about 8:15 and we were dropped at the end of the trail at about 8:45, arranging to meet our carriage at 3pm in front of the Treasury building, figuring that we'd have 6 hours to explore and to work our way back to the Treasury. We began the climb to the Monastery and got about halfway up but the climb was proving problematic for V's knees and the heat was ramping up so we worked our back down to the trail and spent the next 5 hours exploring some of the monuments and tombs before directing our steps to the trail and the Treasury. The site is huge and, if you have not been, stretches over many square kilometres, all of it up and down. I was aware of that before arriving but still had not fully grasped the extent of the city and the amount of time and energy that are required to really explore the site. Even more surprising is the very small area that has been excavated, the largest percent of the area literally untouched with trails leading off through the rough scrub desert and valleys in which it would be very easy to get lost, Diana having done just that when she visited Petra two years ago...