Six months before his 50th birthday, my old friend Thomas announced very matter-of-factly that he wanted to take some of his favorite people, including me, on a pilgrimage to celebrate the occasion. He is one of the most generous people in the world. We are often on the same wavelength, and so to me, everything seemed instantly clear. "Paris!" I yelped. I started scrabbling through my Rolodex. "I should start booking restaurants now."
"Well, no," he said. "I want to go on a real pilgrimage. To the Holy Land. I want to be there on my birthday."
"That's in July." Silence. "It's going to be hot. Extremely hot."
The silence turned a little mulish. "You're a daughter of the South," he said. "You're used to it."
So that is how I found myself a world away, sitting on a camel and consumed with delight, padding through the Roman arch at Petra, through the sandstone gorges lined with tombs, through the magnificent, brooding ruins of a lost empire. More than 2,000 years ago, this was the capital of the kingdom held by the Nabataean Arabs, masters of the spice caravans. I had bought a small, dark-golden lump of frankincense the night before and had fingered it thoughtfully all day. We had heard the muezzin call the dawn prayer, seen the sun rise over the desert, and spent the early morning crisscrossing Petra's vast central plain, climbing flights of rock-hewn steps to reach monuments hidden high in steep, shadowy ravines. Cecil B. DeMille would have coveted their stagy but undeniable grandeur: The Nabataeans were the magpies of the ancient world, plucking architectural elements (and architects) everywhere from Arabia to the Mediterranean. My companions (there were six of us in all, and we'd known one another forever) decided to hike the distance back to the famous Siq, but I'd had enough. There's nothing more fun to me than going fast, and I was curious to see whether my ride could keep up with one of the beautiful little Arabian mares that had just whirled by. So I kicked my camel into a run, and we were off in a cloud of dust.
One of the best things about Petra, we agreed after our two days there, was staying at Taybet Zaman, a secluded mountain lodge about a 15-minute twisty drive from the archaeological site. It was once part of a Jordanian village that was deserted by its inhabitants in the 1960s. A former mayor suggested turning it into a hotel, and so buildings have been recycled into guest quarters furnished with Bedouin textiles in addition to all the accoutrements fancied by Westerners. Locals own and run the place, which includes a Turkish bath, a jewel of a pool, and a small souk, where pottery, textiles, and other artisanal crafts are made on-site.
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