You should imagine Paul, belly full from a pretty decent lunch buffet with plenty of water and tea, now walking up a long path with a welcome amount of shade because I timed this for the afternoon when the cliffs on our left would provide some respite. The path leads to a building that is quite amazing, which is high enough up that it’s less than ten minutes further on to where you can look down over a precipitous drop from the edge of these mountains, over to the Negev Desert in Israel, and north to the Palestinian Territories. The vendors really wanted business. I may have bought more than I normally would, because it was just so clear that tourism was way lower than usual and everyone needs to earn a living. I don’t regret a single thing I bought :-). Below: the obligatory orientation shot to show you where the cliff face of the Royal Tombs sits as seen from this path. You’ll notice that we’re now higher up and farther away.

Here you see the Qasr al Bint (free-standing, square building to the lower left), which you’ve seen before, and also what remains of the Tempe of Winged Lions, to its right and slightly uphill. You can’t get into or walk around that temple, so I didn’t see the winged lions of which you can read below. Next posts, we begin the climb to the building called “The Monastery,” which as you’ll see from the map, is quite a piece uphill to the right, as seen in this photo.