Grinning as if sharing a small secret, Imad said in his familiar Arabic accent,
"My friend, here the money for your tickets. Keep the tickets safely with you. I will have to present it to the company.”

Later, when I found myself standing next to the Theatre gate, it was even more overwhelming than it had looked from the hilltop.

Stepping through the entrance, the view opened..

Back at the Citadel, I continued wandering, and soon the path opened into the ruins of the Temple of Hercules.

Built around 160 AD…….

“Mosaic”—the word sounded familiar, but I’d never really stopped to think about what it meant. I knew nothing about how it was made, what it involved, or even why it mattered.

We left Madaba a little after noon, the car humming gently beneath us. The mosaic workshop was still fresh in my mind, but ahead lay a very different kind of canvas — the open stretch of Highway 15, Jordan’s famous Desert Highway, and the long road to Wadi Musa.

For months, Petra had lived inside my imagination — a city of rose-colored cliffs and impossible beauty, carved patiently by countless hands across centuries.

Now, finally, it was time to meet her..