Ismail Nas

Mr. Nas is a great guide. But what does that mean. Let me start with noting that Mr. Nas used to be a mechanical engineer in both Wadi Musa--the town near Petra and elsewhere. At the risk of sounding like an "educated elite," as an educated person he takes the job of educating his customers very serious. For us, we arrived in Jordan with "guidebook knowledge" and came away after a week with not just a lot more knowledge of Jordan, but a greater appreciation of the rich history of Jordan, the various people of Jordan, and the current and historical sites that we visited. As a proud Jordanian, Mr. Nas shared his love of the geography and scenery, and he also shared his love of Jordanian and Arab cuisine--do not be afraid to get off the beaten path and eat in "public restaurant!" As a lifelong native of Wadi Musa, Mr. Nas also shared with us, not just the history of Petra, but the history of the Bedouin who live, work, and die in that monumental place.

Just as important to all of the above, Mr. Nas is honest. I am not talking about money, but about experiences and making certain that we received the best trip that we could have for the time that we were in Jordan--and sometimes at his own expense. How do I know this? Here is one of many examples. By the time you go to Petra and see The Treasury you will have seen those photographs in books and maybe even this website from above The Treasury. There are two types of photographs. One from above is closer than the other. How can that be? The closer of the two requires you to pay a bit of money to a Bedouin, (which is a good thing), who illegally leads you over a constructed stone wall, up 20-40 feet of steps, and to a landing where you take your picture of The Treasury. While you are making this climb the guide generally will stay on the other side of the fence where law enforcement is watching while you get your picture. Depending on the crowd, you can fulfill your Instagram dreams in about 30 minutes, and the guide can end his day early! Not Mr. Nas! No, we walked all of the way through the valley--seeing the sites all of the way--to a fork and then started climbing, and climbing, and climbing! All the while we saw beautiful scenery and was able to stop at different levels and visit and observe Bedouin folks who had rest areas along the way. It was a long and, frankly, hard climb, but the experience was well worth it. Mr. Nas could have avoided all of that hard climb. After all, we did not know one great spot from the other, and not knowing any better we would have been happy with the wall-climbing picture. But he was honest and we enjoyed a much richer experience due to his honesty and willingness to put in the work. There are other examples of this type of honesty at Petra and in other places that we visited in our trip to see nearly every landmark in Jordan. If it at all matters to the reader of this review, we are not some spellbound tourist who finally made it to the first line on our "bucket list." We travel extensively and have had many great experience--thank you Tu in Siem Reap!--and not very good experiences as well.

Now, if you are just an Instagramer looking for a photograph to rub in the noses of your "friends," you may not need any guide, let alone Mr. Nas. Just show up, stumble along down The Siq clicking your camera at yourself and the surroundings that mean nothing to you, and move on. But if you want to experience the best of the best—to paraphrase Thich Nhat Hanh, if you want to “be in Petra”--then hire Mr. Nas. If he is unavailable, he will find you a person who he trusts who will treat you as family, just as Mr. Nas treated us as family