As you enter the siq, walls towering 200m on either side begin to block out the light, casting enormous shadows on the niches that once held icons of the gods to protect the entrance and hex unwelcome visitors. The siq winds around for 1,5km, then slowly admits a faint pink glow as it widens at the Khazneh (Treasury), standing guard over the exit. At 90m wide and 130m tall, it is the best preserved of Petra’s monuments, although bullet holes are clearly visible on the upper urn. Believing the urn to be hollow and filled with ancient pharaonic treasures, Bedouin periodically fired at it, hoping to burst tills impervious pinata. Actually, the treasury was a royal tomb and, like almost everything else at Petra, is quite solid. The colors are incredible; in the morning the sun’s rays give the monument a rich peach color, while in late afternoon it glistens rose, turning blood-red with the sunset.

Down the road to the right as you face the Khazneh. Wadi Musa opens up to the large Roman Theater (straight ahead) and the long row of Royal Tombs on the face of Jabal Khubtha (on your right as the road curves to the right in front of the Roman Theater). The Romans built their theater under and into the red stone Nabatean necropolis, whose caves still yawn above it. The theater seats some 3000 people and is being restored to its 2nd-century appearance; appreciative audiences are returning for the first time in over 1500 years. A marble Hercules (now in the museum) was discovered just a few years ago in the curtained chambers beneath the stage.

Across the wadi are the Royal Tombs. The Urn Tomb, with its unmistakable recessed facade, commands a soul-scorching view of the still-widening valley. Nearby is the Corinthian Tomb, allegedly a replica of Nero’s Golden Palace in Rome. The Palace Tomb (or the Tomb in Two Stories) literally juts out from the mountainside. The tomb had to be completed by attaching preassembled stones to its upper left-hand corner. Around the corner to the right is the Tomb of Sextus Florentinus, who was so enamored of these hewn heights that he asked his son to bury him in this ultimate outpost of the Roman Empire.