June 15 Travel to Jordan

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Today we leave Israel and head to Aman for our final 6 days of touring. Out of the original 25 travelers, we were reduced to 6 traveling on to Jordan.

We arrived at the hotel lobby before 9 AM expecting to see Khadar, who said he would introduce us to our new driver. Well, no Khadar and no new driver. By 9:15 we were a little concerned. One of our members spied a large white van sitting outside all morning and she decided to see if that was our van....It was! We were off to a bit of a rocky start.

It was about 90 minutes to the border with Jordan and that went well, that is until we got to the crossing. No one had prepared us for exactly what we were supposed to do.

Our driver unloaded the van, and some porters took our luggage and pointed us to a door. On my way to the door, the porter rather pointedly asked me for a tip! Not wanting to lose our luggage, I gave him 60 shekels. We went inside, thinking someone would be there to meet us...Nope! I looked around and saw that people were using a scanner with their passports. I gave it a go and the machine spit out a Visa. I quickly called the others over and had them scan their passports to collect their visa, but now what. I had no idea.

Looking around again, I saw another window, so I asked the person behind the glass what were we supposed to do to get into Jordan. Apparently what we had to do was fork over $60 EACH as an exit fee to leave Israel! I paid and was once again faced with, now what.

I saw people standing in line at one of the gates, so I mosied up and waited. Now apparently Jordanians are a bit pushy. Some women tried to push ahead but we Italians can also be pushy so I held my ground and eventually, we got through. Now we were in the neutral zone but had no guide. We stood around for a few minutes when someone with some papers stopped me and pointed to the papers. I got down and saw our names. I figured this was our guide. Wrong! He was our driver.

We gathered the six travelers and headed out to the van for a ride...but to where?

Our driver led us to our baggage, which the porters loaded onto the van. Of course, they wanted another tip. Well, I had already paid on the other side for everyone so I was looking for someone to step up, but no one did. I boarded the bus with Cathy close behind.

Our driver spoke no English and our van had no A/C and it was close to 88 degrees. We tried to convey our discomfort but all we got was, "Two-minute drive, all good." A short time later we stopped at another checkpoint and met our local Tour Director, not our guide. Our first comment was that the A/C was not working, he said "What?" Well, you can guess there was no way to get the A/C fixed. Ahmed, our tour director, helped us out by buying everyone a bottle of water to keep us cooler for the rest of our trip. Our tour director also obtained our entry visa and off we went for the rather warm drive to Amman.

We are staying at the Raddison Hotel, a very modern hotel in Amman. The rooms are beautiful and the hotel is very well-appointed but it is in the middle of nowhere. Yes, there are other hotels around, but if you want to explore, or find a cafe, you are out of luck.

We dropped off our luggage in our well-appointed room and headed back down to find some food. We did not want to eat in the hotel so we asked for some directions to the local fare nearby. Apparently, the only food is a food court in the mall on top of the hill about a 20-minute walk, uphill all the way. It wasn't too hot so we decided to give it a try. Getting some partial directions, turn right, turn left, cross the bridge, turn right, go left up the hill and there you are....NOT.

We followed the directions as best we could but never really found the mall. We came to sort of a main street and saw some tables on the sidewalk, a sure sign of a cafe. Not wanting to stop at this first place we saw, we walked a few minutes, but there was nothing in sight. We backtracked and headed in, and we were glad we did.

It was obviously a local watering hole with several tables, indicating the availability of food. We sat down at a center table and our waiter soon appeared. He said what I thought was "MENU" and I replied "Yes". The next thing we know we have two bottles of cold water and he is putting a plastic tablecloth over the wooded table. Strange I thought. It gets stranger. He comes by, not with a menu, but with a plate of pickled vegetables. There were pickles, peppers, some unidentified roots, and other bits and pieces. We tasted a few and they were really good, but still no menu.

Out of nowhere, he comes back with two large places covered with a thin pita and what looked like a soup taurine. He places all of them in front of us. Now I was really confused. Did I somehow order this? We pulled off the pita covering to reveal a beautiful lamb shank in a bed of rice with nuts. Our waiter then pours the soup on the meat and rice and smiles and walks away. We had no idea what just happened.

I looked around and saw everyone else was served the same dish. We must have looked completely confused because the folks at the table across from us started to smile and actually laugh a bit at our confusion. But they were nice and explained that this restaurant ONLY served one thing, Mansaf. It is a local specialty and consists of baked lamb over rice with a sauce of yogurt. While we got this explanation, the waiter delivered another dish. Our new friends told us this was a wheat-like product. Okay, it looked good but we had no utensils. We soon learned why. It seems you pick up the rice with your hands, roll it into a ball, pull off a piece of the lamb, and pop it all into your mouth, all while not putting your fingers in your mouth!

It was a bit different, eating with your hands. The folks from the other table came over to help us learn how to eat properly! We talked, laughed, and dined all the while having the best time and a very wild experience. As I always say, eat with the locals because you never know what you will find.

We finished lunch, needed to wash our hands thoroughly, and headed back to the hotel for some pool time as we awaited our 6:30 dinner to meet our new tour group.

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