There’s nothing to be said about Petra that isn’t already done better someplace else on the web. I’ll leave it at this: there’s a lot more to Petra than what we see in the usual tourist pictures. And it’s all good.
We spent three days in Petra seeing the famous stuff and hiking out in the middle of nowhere to see the less traveled ruins. There’s very little in Petra that you can’t walk on or climb up.
Only twice did we violate signs saying “no climbing”, and one of those was with permission of an ‘official guide’ I had met. Mary gets to tell the story of the more egregious violation.
We succumbed to our touristy inner selves and even went on a candlit stroll to the treasury at night. It takes something like 1500 candles to lite the 2km path to the Treasury and then another 500 light the treasury itself up. It’s corny, but actually really cool.