The Sharah Mountains & Little Petra

Road-Trip Through Jordan

More from this series:

• Introduction: Road-Trip Through Jordan
• Review: Emirates Lounge San Francisco Airport
• Review: Emirates First Class A380 San Francisco To Dubai
• Review: Emirates First Class 777-300ER Dubai To Amman
• Review: Mosaic City Hotel Madaba Jordan
• Driving The King’s Highway In Jordan
• Review: Feynan Ecolodge
• The Sharah Mountains & Little Petra
• Review: Glamping In Wadi Rum
• Review: Petra Marriott Hotel
• Visiting Petra
• Review: Grand Hyatt Amman Grand Suite
• Tips For Traveling To Jordan

This will be a shorter post (“Thank goodness!” I can hear you saying, “We just read 3,000 words about a freezing cave masquerading as a hotel.”), but I wanted to highlight another of the drives we took in Jordan, and the site of “Little Petra,” which is less-visited than the larger complex just a few miles away.

As we were packing up to leave Feynan Ecolodge, one of the hosts asked where we were headed. We explained we were going to Wadi Rum, but hadn’t decided which road to take. His eyes lit up as he insisted “You must go via Wadi Namla! It is the most beautiful road in Jordan.”

That seemed like a great endorsement, so with a few more instructions “Google Maps knows the way” and “ignore the ‘road closed’ sign” we jumped in the car.

Given how beautiful Dana Reserve is, it’s not surprising that the surrounding countryside was stunning as well.

We even saw several groups of camels grazing on tree leaves!

As we got closer to the mountains, we came to the promised “Road Closed” sign.

See that stretch of road behind the sign? I swear to everything — that was the best roadway in all of Jordan. Smooth, fresh pavement, no potholes, and nary a speed bump to be seen.

Granted, there weren’t any guard rails either, and the grades continued to be comically steep. But it was a great road for several miles.

Nearing the top of the first hill, the road became a little less great.

And then they just gave up entirely.

We thought it was great fun, though were glad we’d filled up the car with fuel a few days earlier in Kerak!

Eventually the pavement resumed, and the landscape changed completely.

This side of the mountains felt almost like Zion’s or other parts of the American Southwest, which was a fun surprise.

The road continued on to Little Petra, which was marked as “Triclinium” on several of the signs (the Roman dining-hall is one of the most notable sites in the complex).

Exploring Little Petra

If you decide to go to Little Petra, there are two things you need to know:

• Admission is free
• You aren’t required to have a guide

There will almost certainly be someone standing near the entrance or row of shops telling you otherwise, but there is no reason you can’t just walk in and explore. If you want to hike the back canyon from Little Petra to Petra proper, you do technically need to have purchased your Petra tickets ahead of time.

But there’s no fee to enter Little Petra itself, and you can do so independently. Be insistent — the spokesperson for the gaggle of men standing by the entrance backed down quickly when we protested their “ticket and guide” price.

Siq al-Barid (the actual name of the site) is called “Little Petra” because in many ways it feels like a pocket-sized version of Petra. The site was likely a “suburb” of Petra back in the day, so it’s not entirely inappropriate.

You still enter the complex through a narrow siq:

Facades are carved directly into the canyon walls:

And chiseled stairs climb the cliff sides:

As the site is sparsely-attended, however, you have a bit more freedom to explore.

So you can climb up and see some of the ancient wall and ceiling paintings.

The site is easy to explore, and we spent about 45 minutes climbing around. I’m sure you could spend longer if you wanted to.

Bottom line

Even if you’re not hiking in Dana, this is a great way to get to or from Petra. I might recommend taking the King’s Highway in one direction, and this in the other, though it’s certainly going to be easier to go up that highway rather than down until they finish the road.

Little Petra is well worth a stop as well, and is a nice way to experience Nabataean architecture without all the crowds and touts at Petra. And it’s free!