I think you can hire private guide when you stop by the Petra visitor center. You can take a horse ride from the entrance gate to the siq entrance and then a carrige ride through the siq. From the Treasury area you can hire a camel or donkey to ride through the main path of Petra.

Bring cash for the animal and carriage rides.

As above, Private guides are available on entry at Petra. You can horseride to Siq and carriage thru Siq. Camel or donkey thru the site though I've seen carriages, but if you can walk some even with uneven ground, much more interesting.

Camel is not a pet, nor a donkey and not all that comfortable to be riding on for more than a few minutes.

While I'm too late for the jrear, maybe other readers will also want to know.

Our Jordan guide went to the Visitor Center and got us a wonderful Petra guide, who was one of the two lead-archeologists responsible for the building found UNDER the Treasury building, which you can look at through protective bars on the ground, right in front of the Treasury building.

If you can get Sami Al-Nawafleh, that'll be unusual value. He really knows the place and can explain it well.

I have photos of our day at Petra and our guide Sami Al-Nawafleh at http://bit.ly/petraphotos

- Andrys
http://www.pbase.com/andrys

The carriage ride is very bumpy as the horse is trotting along rough cobblestones and rocks. I held my breath many times as the poor horses slipped on the rocks.

The poor animals stand in the head for many hours throughout the day. I gave my last remaining water to feed a thirsty dog. Give your horse a drink if you can spare it or bring a bottle just for them.

Andrys,

I enjoyed going over your photos. They're very nice.

An off topic question, if I may ... Mt. Nemrut vs. Ephesus. If you had to pick one to see which one would you pick?

Axel2DP, apologies for the delay in response but I don't get notifications on replies and just saw this.

Mt. Nemrut is windy and the rock steps are very uneven, but it was more interesting a day for me than Ephesus, which is very spacious, has a lot of interesting history but is physically mainly what remains of the front areas of the older buildings. They're shells but interesting ones. There's also an interesting museum there.

You do need to be careful with foot placement at Mt. Nemrut. This thread was about Petra, but I guess you saw the photos of what we saw from both Ephesus and Mt. Nemrut at http://www.pbase.com/turkey

I'm interested in biblical history too so Ephesus was a draw for that reason. There's more, space-wise, to see there, so it's a toss-up. Mt. Nemrut is definitely off the beaten path but the effect of those sculptures at the top of that mountain is pretty strong. Still, they are the remnants of an egomaniac's attempt to be remembered (but history is made by that type ).