Christmas at home, return to Jordan with 4 friends for company, to Jerash, Petra, Wadi Rum, Aqaba, ferry to Egypt, Nuweiba and Dhahab on the Sinai peninsular.

We had a wonderful family Christmas, made all the better for Robert and Sonia's engagement. Super news and a great excuse for lots of champagne. For those who don't know, Sonia Morgan is the girl next door. The Morgan's moved into the lane 18 years ago and both Rob and Sonia went to Uppingham.

But down to earth and back to The Saga, Part 2. We flew back to Jordan on Saturday, 5 January, arriving at about 22.00. We had a night in the Alia Hotel at the airport and spent Sunday re-commissioning Fritz. He had spent a quiet Christmas in the hotel car park, though they had been kind enough to put up a Christmas tree for him in reception!

Everything worked first time, so we were ready by midday to go to Safeway in Amman to restock the fridge and general stores. Back to the hotel to greet our friends the Helps and Milwards who were due in at 23.45. One hour late, so that by the time we had got them to the hotel and all had had a nightcap or two in Fritz, it was 02.45 local time. Up in reasonable time and off to Jerash, 70k and about 1 hour north. They went on in their hire car and we trundled after them in Fritz. It was raining and blowing a very cold wind so Jerash was seen in some discomfort and a late lunch in the restaurant to warm us up was welcome. It was here that I discovered that I had very carefully put a roll of £180 into the space between my trouser pocket and my waterproof trouser pocket at the ticket office. It slid down and dropped out without my knowing.
On asking a guide where the police station was so that I could report it for insurance purposes, I was told that a young lad had found it and handed it in to the police! They are really so honest out here. Another visit to a Jordanian police station, more paperwork and my money was restored, less the reward that I gave to the lad.

And so we set off for the hotel. We soon got a call from the lead car to say they were into snow and that the traffic was very thick on the hills. And it got worse. There were probably 5 inches of wet slippery snow and the motorway ground to a halt on the very steep hills around Amman. Cars, buses and lorries were all slipping and sliding and making miniscule progress. Our chums were in the thick of it, but we were very lucky to arrive at a motorway junction as the police closed the road and diverted us off. We struggled on, pushing cars and vans out of the way so I could get Fritz through. We came to a final hill on a service road, bypassing the blocked main road. It was so steep that no one had attempted it. Fritz, of course, went up it like a dose of salts, without a trace of wheel spin and we had an empty road all the way back to the hotel. The 1 hour journey took us 7 hours and our poor friends, in Jordan for some winter sunshine, 10.5 hours! The hotel had long since stopped serving hot food, so we all had a hot stew and a tot of whisky in Fritz before collapsing into bed at….02.45 again!

We decided to change our plans and head straight south to Petra to get away from the bad weather. We sent our friends on the scenic route whilst we took Fritz the dull but faster Desert Highway. Poor people! We had dropped them in it again. Their road was flooded and full of water filled potholes and they made very slow progress. They diverted to the Desert Highway and made it to Petra just ahead of us.

Next morning we walked into Petra itself, down the ½ mile Siq (a narrow gorge, only about 20 feet wide in parts, but with sides rising vertically to some 300 feet). The weather was better, but still very cold, and you would have been amused to see 3 "respectable" English gentlemen (well we think we are) with heads wrapped up in Jordanian keffiyehs! Petra is wonderful and the walk up to the Monastery certainly warmed us up. We had a late lunch in the centre of the old site, at which point it started to pour with rain, and the locals insisted on trucking us out as they were afraid that the Siq was flooding. As 28 tourists were drowned there in the late 1960's, we accepted with alacrity! By late evening, we learnt that the police had closed all roads in and out of Petra as they were expecting 5-6 inches of snow on the roads above the town. Sure enough, by morning there was snow in Petra itself, but blue skies too, so we had another glorious morning exploring it again. We headed south to Aqaba after lunch, driving up the single track that the snowploughs had cleared and reached Aqaba by early evening.

Next day we set off for Wadi Rum, about 70k north east of Aqaba. It is a fantastic landscape of sand desert with huge bastions of rock rising sheer from the wadi bottom, all carved by erosion into amazing patterns and shapes. We left the vehicles at the centre and were driven round by a charming Jordanian in an ancient Nissan Patrol. It was a sunny day with lots of clouds driven by the wind so that the light and shadow on the cliffs was constantly changing.

By now our friends had been variously frozen, stranded, soaked and shaken by alien road conditions but were in amazingly good humour. However, it has to be said that the very cheap hotel rates currently available in Jordan had enticed them into the smartest hotels (and their tour leaders into the smartest hotel car parks), and the thought of a day around the pool at the Aqaba Movenpick was too tempting. The more adventurous spent an hour or two shopping, and sampling sugar cane juice, and then we all ended up on the sun loungers.

Sunday was the sad parting of the ways as we were staying on in Aqaba, prior to crossing by ferry to Sinai, and they were heading north via the Dead Sea to fly home on Monday. We gather they had a good day, reading the Jordanian Times whilst floating in the buoyant water, but managed one more death defying drive up the side of the Jordan Valley. They are now home seeking legal advice on suing Winter Tours plc for trauma, frostbite and sleep deprivation!

At last the weather broke and we had a pleasant two days by the Red Sea just south of Aqaba before we got our comeuppance for all our chums misfortunes. The ferry to Nuweiba ran very late for us, getting us there by 00.15. By the time we had worked our way through Egyptian customs, a process to drive any one insane, it was 04.00. We drove out of the port, failed to find the camp we were looking for and stopped in desperation in a side street for what was left of the night - 3 hours as it turned out.

Next morning we drove in a daze through the staggering scenery of the Sinai Peninsular some 70k to a little resort called Dhahab. We were looking for a good place to stop and found a beach on which some Belgian friends from Aqaba had sunk their 6 ton motorhome. They were very relieved to see us as a team of 7 or 8 locals were having no effect in getting them out of the axle deep sand. Fritz to the rescue and out they came first time. He even earned us a free meal at the local fish restaurant as our friends were so grateful that they insisted on treating us.

And here we still are on Sunday. We have celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary sitting in the hot sun, but cooled by a brisk breeze. We went out to the reef on a glass bottomed boat to admire the coral and amazing fish. It was great, but we returned frozen as we had left the shelter of the surrounding hills and were in the full wind off the coast. Strange drinking hot soup back at Fritz whilst still getting sunburnt! Tonight we will return to the local fish restaurant for a celebration of our continuing togetherness…now really tested by 5 months in a 12x7ft box, and tomorrow, move further south to Sharm el Sheik and the tip of the Sinai Peninsular. So far we have loved Egypt, but this is only the tourist loving resort end and the frenetic pace of Cairo may be a little tougher. We need to get back on the road as we have many miles to cover in the next month.

Richard & Paula.
Dhahab, Sinai.
20 January, 2002.