'1st Time To See It Like This': Petra Tourism Workers Long For Visitors To Return

"In the ancient city of Petra, Jordan's best-known tourist destination, bird song echoes against the multicolored rock and the elaborate monuments instead of the din of tour groups and souvenir-sellers."

"The coronavirus pandemic has done what war did not — bring this Middle Eastern country's vital tourism industry to a dramatic halt, and with it, the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of workers."

"'This is so strange — it is the first time to see it like this,' says tour guide Mohammad Awwad, who had foreign tourists to lead through Petra even with war raging next door in Iraq in 2003. On March 15, Jordan closed archaeological sites and banned visitors from entering the country as it prepared its lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19."

"Walking through the long narrow passage between 300-foot-high canyon walls, it's so quiet you can hear the flutter of birds' wings."

"At a café facing the Treasury, an elaborate colonnaded mausoleum carved into the rose-colored rock where tourists normally pose with camels, hungry cats jump up on empty tables and chairs. A hawk wheels high above the striated rock as the sun comes up behind the mountains. Sparrows hop along the gravel paths usually trod by tourists."

"Most souvenir shop owners have left their wares sitting on tables, as if they meant to come back any minute. Earrings dangle from a plastic stand next to an overturned sign advertising silver and soft drinks. Shelves open to the elements hold hundreds of bottles filled with colored sand artfully arranged in the shapes of camels and mountains."