I feel a bit apprehensive as I approach the road and stand scanning the rock wall before me. Drawing closer, a narrow passage becomes visible. I walk through the fissure, called the Siq, toward the ancient city with its secrets hidden by a sheer faced mountain that seems impenetrable. I am surrounded on all sides by rock that soars a hundred feet into the cloudless blue desert sky; I feel like Moses crossing the Red Sea just after it parted!

Meandering for almost a mile along the twisting turning Siq, I find it grows ever darker as the walls close in, never revealing much of what lies ahead. I stop, frozen in my tracks. Although very little is visible in the brilliant morning sun that squeezes through the narrow opening, I know I'm looking at something remarkable. I shield my eyes as I step into the sunlight filling the courtyard of Petra's most famous building, El Khazneh - The Treasury, revealing the full beauty of the massive structure. I look up and my eyes move over its ten story height and the mountain rising above it, which seems to touch the sky.

This is no ordinary building. It is hand carved from solid sandstone, fifty years in the making. The sun gives it a reddish hue, which is why Petra is called "The Rose City". I remember seeing it the first time years ago, in a film, "Indian Jones and the Last Crusade" but nothing prepared me for the scale and beautiful detail I now see.

Two hundred years before Christ, Petra was a bustling Nabaetean city. As I walk along its well preserved main street, I imagine people living, working and playing around this impressive rock hewn city. I feel especially in awe of the amphitheater. Chiseled from solid rock, it seats 4,500 spectators. I walk along the aisles and sit on the pitted rock bench. I can feel the heat, stored in the rock from the morning sun, through my clothes.

As I rest, I daydream and see actors appear on the stage before me performing a Greek tragedy. My mind fills in the color, the music, the movement. A passing couple wake me from my reverie. I lazily scan the cliffs around me. There! Nestled in stone and frozen by time, I see the royal tombs of Nabaetean kings and queens. These I visited earlier. I am so excited, sitting here in the center of Petra, an "ancient wonder", an almost mystical place that I have dreamt of visiting since childhood.