Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Nabataean Tent Restaurant
Offline map
(lunch buffet JD10, drinks JD2; 11am-3pm)
This eatery is similar
to the Basin, with a slightly less appetising spread but a lovely spot under blue-flowering jacaranda trees (they
flower in May).
Bdoul Mofleh Tea Shop
(
077-6094797; lunchbox JD3, tea by donation)
A delightful ad hoc venture outside
the owner's cave home.
In the neighbouring village of Umm Sayhoun, north of the city centre, you can try the original flavours of Petra in a
Bedouin family home, prepared by the mother of the house (
Click here
). Not content just to watch? Then cook the
food yourself at Petra Kitchen (
Click here
) in Wadi Musa.
Throughout Petra, including at the High Place of Sacrifice and the Monastery, stalls sell bottled water, soft drinks
and snacks. Best of all they sell sweet black tea laced with herbs; sharing a quite conversation with the aged or in-
fant vendor is a guaranteed highlight of the ancient city.
Wadi Musa
03 / POP 20,000 / ELEV 1150M
The village that has sprung up around Petra is called Wadi Musa (Valley of Moses). It's an
easy-going assemblage of hotels, restaurants and shops stretching about 5km from 'Ain
Musa (Moses' Spring) to the main entrance of Petra at the bottom of the wadi.
Wadi Musa's fortunes depend almost entirely on tourism. Dozens of new hotels were
hastily erected in the late 1990s (after the peace treaty with Israel), often with no aesthetic
or social sensitivity. Many locals bought into the new opportunities that mass tourism
offered only to be stung in the tourism slump after 9/11 and again in 2011 after the Arab
Spring. A moratorium on hotel building is in place until 2012 in an effort to curb rampant
expansion and to shift the focus to improving services rather than simply 'packing them
in'.
Prices in Wadi Musa are inevitably higher than in other tourist destinations in Jordan,
reflecting its status as guardian to one of the 'New Seven Wonders of the World', identi-
fied by an international public poll in 2008.
