Jordan

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...picking up the tale...

Well in the end, no updates from Jordan. When I first got into Amman I just didn't have much to add to the previous entry, and then from there South I've been more or less out of internet, or at least internet cafe, territory. Now with so much to tell (was it really 17 days ago since my last post?!!) I'm not sure I have the energy to get all of it down! I'll see how things go. Not helping is the fact that this internet cafe seems to think a comfortable height for a keyboard is somewhere up around one's chin... or maybe I've pounded 3 inches off my ass the last few weeks on the bike. I guess I'll give this a go until my arms cramp up and then see if I can find another cafe down the strip. At least they sell plenty of beer here. I'm already looking forward to a cold one this afternoon. And if I'm very lucky I might even find somewhere to veg and watch the last session of SA v Eng. I am a man of simple pleasures 😊

Leaving Syria

So I left Damascus and headed for Bosra, which is about 40km North of the Jordanian border. I was hoping to hit some 'b' roads to the East of Damascus and then switch South along an inviting chain of small mountains running down towards Bosra. In the end I didn't get close. Getting out of Damas in a more or less Southerly direction was all I managed. After many very pleasant wrong turns that started off in the right direction and then faded out into dead-end villages and suspicious looking cops, and with only about 50 kms of fuel left on the gauge, I decided to give it up and found my way back to the main highway and then East to Bosra. It was a nice enough drive, marred only by my embarrassment at accidentally pulling into a military checkpoint and idling next to the fuel pumps before being told pretty sharply that I should get lost and find somewhere else to fill up.

Bosra is a surprisingly neat and tidy little town, quite pretty actually, and sitting on the flat cultivated plains below those mountains I couldn't find earlier in the day. I was pretty cold and tired and the light was fading so I pulled up at the first restauranty looking place and was welcomed inside. In fact this ended up being the only place in Syria that left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. I don't know whether I caught them on a bad day, or slow time of year, but unlike just about everywhere else I had been I immediately felt like I was getting hustled for as much cash as possible and it put me in a bit of a mood. After accepting the offer of a night in the tent like structure attached to the side of the restaurant it was then a battle to keep refusing the 'genuine roman coins' and tours around the ruins (not worth the trouble I thought) and the haggling over the new (more expensive) accommodation that was suddenly found when it was deemed the 'tent' would be too cold. Maybe it would have been, and it's true I've definitely had worse in the way of hustle, but it was a bit of a surprise after the last 10 days and I was glad to be leaving in the morning.

In the end it was all worth it just to see the roman amphitheater there and I was glad I made the diversion. In the morning after the inevitable muttering from my hosts about a bit extra for their pains, I packed up early and had a big smile on my face as I gunned the bike and left Bosra behind me. To the border!

Jordan

The border was no problem at all. Easiest one so far. From the moment I arrived it was all 'welcome to Jordan' and 'first you take this and go here, then there, then here, etc. etc.' The whole process still took about 2 hours in total but that is well below par so far and with the costs all-in at about 50 euro for visa, insurance and taxes, I was pretty happy with things and was on my way to Amman in the cold sunshine at around 10:30am.

Getting to my friends in Amman was a little more tricky. They had given me their location on google earth which I had added as a waypoint to my GPS. What I didn't figure on is Jordan being so damn hilly! And with so many one way streets! After numerous meanderings, drawing ever closer but seemingly taking ages to actually get anywhere through traffic and streets that suddenly proclaimed left turns only or some such, I eventually found it, and when Rakan arrived home after work that evening I was lurking around outside waiting for him.

Actually, lurking is just about the right word. Just as darkness was falling and still not 100% sure I was at the right place, I asked a middle aged woman walking past on the road if she knew what street I was on. At that stage I was off the bike and just leaning against the wall and I guess she hadn't seen me because she jumped about a foot backwards with this wide eyed look of fear and cornered violence like she might try and kick me or something. It only lasted a second and we were both laughing about it afterwards as she pointed me in the right direction, but I guess I cut a more imposing figure than I thought in my black jacket and boots coming out of the shadows. She said she was still on edge from living in New York for a few years or something. Nothing dangerous ever happens in Amman she assured me 😊

Staying with Rakan and Melissa was excellent. Thanks guys!! I did nothing and loved it. 😊 Outside was cold and miserable and raining and I just couldn't be bothered moving on until the weather cleared up a bit. After 5 days of loafing on their comfy couch and relaxing, and with the weather set to get a bit brighter towards the end of the week, I finally decided to continue on to Petra on Thursday. That would be 10 Dec. The plan was to check out Petra, then move on to Wadi Rum to meet Rakan who would be there doing some work over the weekend.

The ride into Peta was cold. I mean really COLD. By the time I peeled myself off my bike at the entrance to town, I was struggling to open my hands fully. I found a buffet lunch place, stuffed my face and sat in the sun with a pot of tea for an hour. I needed that time to warm up, but perhaps I'd have rushed it a bit more if I'd known that the ticket office for the ruins closed at 4pm. By the time I found a hotel and got my stuff into my room it was too late to see the ruins that afternoon. And that was a pity because as I realised the next day, a morning is just not enough time to see the whole site, and it really is worth seeing. Suspecting this might be the case and feeling a little bummed that I'd missed the afternoon session I decided to take a chance on the 'Petra by night' tour which runs 3 times a week and happened to be on that night. In the past I have found these 'sound and light' type shows a bit iffy but I figured I might as well make the most of the short time I had managed to leave myself. I am glad I went. The 'traditional string music' we (all 300 or so of us!!) were played was pretty poor I thought, but the flute number was better and the tea was better still. Walking down through the darkness lit by (we were told proudly) 1500 candles and winding through the main causeway into the treasury (of Indiana Jones fame) was pretty damn amazing, especially as I had not done the route before and really had no idea how long it all was or how deep the canyon runs above your head. Very very impressive and very cool.

The next day was a bit rushed. I was up at 6am and at the ruins just after 7. I walked and saw as much as possible but in the end didn't really scratch the surface. Such an amazing place though. I kind of had it in my mind that it was just the treasury and a couple of canyons, but the whole site spreads back and back and there are hiking routes up to the 'place of sacrifice' and other interesting spots. Gutted that I'd given myself so little time to see it but deciding that Wadi Rum was calling, I left Petra around midday and took the exotically named 'King's Way' over the mountains and down to Wadi Rum.

It was a really great day's riding. The King's Way is a narrowish, tarred secondary road through the mountains that joins back with the main south-bound highway about 60km from Aqaba. As you come down through the mountains the scenery suddenly opens up to fantastic flat sandy desert which spreads out to surround sandy red outcrops of rock climbing, near vertically, 100's of meters into the blue sky. I remember being reminded of those islands in Thailand - Phuket I think - where the sheer rocks jut out of the water and immortalised in countless travel shows and brochures (I've not been there myself!). There was a slight blueish haze over the sandy desert floor which completed the picture and with a stiff tail wind and a big smile I swooped down out of the mountains and on to Wadi Rum.

Wadi Rum is a protected Bedouin area in the desert and after paying a nominal fee of 2 JD (about 2 Euro) you can go in and see the sights for yourself, although if you want to drive in the reserve you must (I was told) have permission from the locals and they must accompany you at all times. In fact the guys at the main gate told me I couldn't drive my bike into the reserve at all, but after speaking to a few other locals between the gate and the beginning of the Wadi I got the story I preferred: so long as you had company it was no problem. Now all I had to do was find Rakan.

Rakan was working and I couldn't get through to him by phone but I did have the name of the camp owner where he was staying and as I took a break at the edge of the desert, looking with some nervousness at the thick soft sand rolling out before me, a couple of Bedouin guys in a bakkie (pickup to you non-saffers) stopped to ask where I was going. They knew the guy I was looking for and offered to take my bags and lead me in. They were not looking for any money, just friendly and happy to help. Perfect! 😊 I striped down the bike, dumped everything on the back of their bakkie and with the sun already down over the cliffs and the wide wadi floor getting gloomy, we went in search of the camp.

Well I wish I could say I blasted through the sand like a Dakar racer with 10,000 sandy km's under his wheels, but it was not to be. It was fun, but damn tiring after my 6am start and long day. The wadi had a disconcerting way of alternating suddenly between lovely hard packed surface which the bike could skip easily over, to long, thick drifts of deep fine sand, all heavily rutted with the tracks of previous vehicles. I came off in one of those ruts. The trick is to avoid them, get up a reasonable pace and aim for the 'clean' sand as much as possible, but this is easier said than done when following another vehicle through the fading light. It wasn't a bad spill and nothing broke or even scratched - just a quick tumble into soft sand and I had the bike back up and going again before the guys in front could turn around. Just before we crested the final dune to get into the camp I got really stuck though. It was about 20m of pure sand dune, almost dust it was so fine. I tried to gun it but I didn't have enough starting speed and about 5m from the top I was dug deep into the sand with my rear wheel spinning uselessly fully below 'ground level'. Luckily I had friends 😊 We pulled and pushed and without much hassle managed to shift the bike up over the top and down onto the hard stuff that ran into camp. I was knackered but I had arrived!

I spent 2 nights in the camp. The first with Rakan and his colleagues and the second, after they had all left, I was left completely on my own for the night to sip tea by the fire under the stars and contemplate the almost tinnitus inducing silence. That was a fantastic night. No moon, just the stars, black sky, fire, tea, dinner left for me by the Bedouin and the silence. Words fail.

The next day I was off to Aqaba. My bags were picked up and taken back to the village and I had a much better time on the slightly damp (and therefore firmer) morning sand back to the main road. No spills this time and I was grinning as I spun the back wheel a bit over the loose stuff.

There is not much more to tell about Jordan actually. I left Wadi Rum that morning and went straight to Aqaba, only about 40km away and all downhill highway towards the coast. The temp changed dramatically from something between 5 and 15 C at Wadi Rum to a far more civilized 20-25 at Aqaba and I got my shorts out for the first time on the trip so far! I checked into a decent hotel and was happy to fork out a bit extra to be able to park my bike right outside reception and even more happy to find the hot water heater for the shower was in fine working order. After 2 cold nights in the desert a hot shower was bloody wonderful 😊

The ferry was due to leave for Egypt at 1pm the following day and I got a good night's sleep and tried not to stress about the Egyptian border which was by all accounts going to be the most annoying and time consuming of the whole trip. In the end it wasn't so bad, but more of that tomorrow... now time for that beer and, with luck, the final session for day 4 with SA in a fairly strong, or strengthening, position!

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Comments

[anne]

Hi Chris! - what a great time you are already having! I'm envious. Wonderful photos - thanks for those. We can now picture you bombing your way through that marvellous terrain - and what about those sites! Enjoy !! hope you find a good spot to enjoy Christmas!