T A B L E_T A L K Have you visited places you didn't want to leave? Regret leaving in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk. R E C E N T L Y Marooned in Colorado By Sara Baird A type-A journalist is forced to unwind at an idyllic, isolated (accessible only by narrow-gauge railroad or helicopter) Colorado resort (11/25/97) Road Warrior Jerry Yang Yahoo's Jerry Yang shares travel secrets (11/24/97) Surreal Gourmet By Bob Blumer A turkey chicken's Thanksgiving recipe (11/21/97) Crossing Mongolia By Amanda Jones Of gers and grit on the first recorded four-wheel expedition through the Gobi Desert to Lake Hovsgol (11/20/97) Gypsies of Spain By Curt Hopkins Scenes from a passionate stay in Granada (11/19/97) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Wanderlust archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Your virtual travel agency - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		AT DUSK, AFTER THE TOURISTS HAVE LEFT, JORDAN'S ANCIENT RUIN COMES TO SPLENDID LIFE. BY MAXINE ROSE SCHUR | "Sudden around me rocks and cliffs arise; the earth their footstool, and their crown, the skies." -- John William Burgon, "Petra" (1845) Thirty centuries ago, a Bedouin tribe from Arabia arrived in the land that is now Jordan. Here, they pitched their tents, tended their fires and gathered their flocks. The nomads came merely to graze their animals -- but over time they did something extraordinary. They not only settled and tilled the land, they built an empire that rivaled Rome. These extraordinary people were the Nabateans, and their prosperity came from the location of their capital, Petra, at the junction of trade routes linking Rome with China and India. By imposing taxes on the spices and silks that passed through Petra, and by offering protection from marauding tribes, the Nabateans grew fabulously rich. Their empire stretched from Syria to Egypt, and Petra was its crown jewel. A vast, elegant city, carved entirely out of colorful stone, Petra became one of the most important cities of the ancient world. But then, in the third century, the Romans diverted the trade routes away from Petra, and the Nabatean civilization swiftly declined. By the fourth century Nabatea disappeared. For the next 15 centuries, the location of Petra was lost to the world. Then, one autumn day in 1812, the fabled city was discovered hidden in a mountain cleft by an adventurous young Englishman. Last year I discovered it. The best way to discover Petra is to first see it as I did: at the wrong time of day. Instead of arriving in the tourist-traffic of morning, I came just before dusk. I came alone. I came on foot with neither guidebook nor guide. I began my walk when the air hangs still and all about, the mountains ring with the pitiable voices of sheep. I had come to the village of Wadi Musa with my husband and two sons in a taxi from Amman. It was late afternoon when we arrived, and as we planned "to do Petra" the next day, the others chose to explore the cliff-edge village. But I wanted a preview, no matter how brief, so I took the hotel van to the entrance of the ancient site and arranged a pick-up time with the driver. And there, at the shabby ticket booth that marks the entrance to Petra, I unknowingly began a quest. As I made my way down the broad dirt trail, departing horseback riders and carriages clattered past on my right. The trail sliced through the wadi, which was carpeted with a winter stubble of dry grass, scraggly oleander and gorse. On either side stood the ruins of outer Petra, notably hundreds of Nabatean tombs, a honeycomb of caves gouged into the craggy red cliffs. Where the trail narrowed, I came upon splintery wooden tables lined up on the right. Along with postcards, here you could buy the ubiquitous Jordanian souvenir: a small bottle of pastel-colored sand with your own name written into it by fine black powder poured through bent wire. At this time of day, only a few vendors remained. I stopped to watch a returning tourist have his name poured into a bottle. "See. See. See. See." I barely heard these words, for they seemed distant and strangely, to my subconscious, sounded like Spanish. In a moment I realized they were English and a command directed at me. A few tables down, I saw an old Bedouin man beckoning, and the abrupt sight of him reminded me of the very definition of Bedouin: "those who become visible." He wore a long black robe. On his head he wore a white kafiya and on his bare feet, broken shoes. He looked a romantic figure. The black robe, the dagger at his side, and his skin, the soft-dun color of a sepia photograph, gave an effect that he was outside time. "See, Lady. See antiquities." N E X T+P A G E +| Nabatean, Bedouin: The same