'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.