To the left is a map of our route. We will start in the Nabataean capital city of Petra, and travel south through the desert to the port city of Leuce Come. Boats are unloading cargo there for us to pick up and bring to Petra.

It might have been possible for some of the boats to travel up the coast to Aila, but there are dangerous coral reefs and bad cross winds. The merchants are afraid that they might loose some of their very valuable cargo by going farther by boat. So, we will take the trip south to get the cargo.

Moving goods by land was a very expensive undertaking in the ancient world. In Rome, it was cheaper to ship wheat by boat from Alexandria in Egypt to Rome, at a distance of some 1,250 miles, than to transport it fifty miles by land. But the threat of loosing the cargo is worth the cost of transporting it by camel caravan. So we have a job to do!

Ancient camel caravans traveled about 40 miles a day, if they traveled around ten hours a day at a speed of four miles an hour. Some people have argued that camels can go faster, but in the case of a loaded camel caravan, the caravan drives usually walked, and the camels carried the heavy loads.