We left Aswan to fly to Cairo and then on to Amman, Jordan. It was raining and blowing and took a long ride into the city. We thought that Cairo traffic was bad, but Amman was worse! It was decent on the main highways, but in the city it was squeezing and forcing your car ahead of the others with constant lane changes.
Joel's fashion statement to brave the weather!
The Roman theater
View from the Citadel. Top of the hill
Dwellings everywhere!
Our Guide? "Read this!"
Ruins at Jerash after climbing the mountains in the fog and lunch.
Here comes the storm!
Riding up to the 'castle'.
The real reason we went to the castle!
That is bread baking on the hot rocks!
Rising dough.
Excited about lunch!
Trying to get warm! Finally figured out the thermostat after 2 days.
Our driver, Nassar, got us there and tried to explain along the way what was happening the next day while speaking softly in the older van with me in the far back, unable to her anything. We had booked our first day as a free day to get adjusted, but he insisted that we had to tour the next day in the storm.
He would pick us up at 8:30 and we would see the Blue Mosque, the Roman Theater, a castle, and some Roman ruins. A lunch would be included. He showed up on time, but Pam had chosen to stay at the Hotel to recover from an achey body and fatigue.
Our ‘guide’ driver did bring some decent rain ponchos and some cheap umbrellas, but that was the extent of his customer service. First stop was the Blue Mosque. Pouring rain and a chance to step out of the van and take a picture from across the street. No entrance no explanation, but the dome was blue, thus the name.
Of course the windows were fogged worse than the bathroom mirror after a long hot shower and he offered a tissue to wipe (smear) them clean.
We stopped at the Roman Theater and made up half of the tourists there. He pointed to information placards that were in English so we would understand what we were seeing. They had a couple of museums there that were small. We walked through puddles to get to them and our feet were soaked.
Janice spent most of the time in one of the museums with one of the ladies who watched over the place and had a large propane fired heater. Her name was Dream and Janice learned a lot about her personal life.
Walking back to the van in the storm Janice’s umbrella collapsed. We got back to the van and headed up the hill to the Citadel. There wasn’t much to see, but he asked if we wanted to hire a local guide. No thanks, so we trudged up a hill to a museum that wasn’t much, but warmer and no wind. We came off the hill and looked for our man in the snack bar, bathroom, parking lot, and I finally found him smoking in the ‘local guides’ room. He wanted to show me a sign that said only local guides were allowed, but I just wanted us to get in the van and get going.
We had about enough, but he said we should go to Jerash that was only a 45 minute ride. We asked what was there and he said Roman ruins, an old castle, and lunch. It was obvious that lunch was the big incentive for him plus he might not be paid if he didn’t check in with the destinations. We decided that 45 minutes of seeing the countryside and having lunch would be okay.
I took over the heating controls as every window was fogged except for his windshield. Turned the fan from 1 to 4, defrost, and opened the window when the rain calmed down.
“We were told the van would have WiFi.”
“Yeah it’s here.” But he couldn’t figure out it’s name or password. It was a cellular hotspot that I finally figured out. We tried emailing and messaging Pam to see how she was doing, but no luck.
Made it to the city and he pointed to a dark black cloud way off in the distance and said the castle is in that cloud. We insisted that we didn’t need to go there, but off we went as we could stay in the van and see the castle. 40 minutes later we were in the fog and he wanted us to get out to get a cup of tea. We balked, but it was clear he wanted a smoke. Janice went for the tea and he joined his friends for a couple of cigarettes.
He wanted to buy tickets for us to go up the hill to see the run down castle. The wind was howling, the doors were blowing open and shut and we said NO. “Okay, just wanted to give you the opportunity as it is in your program.”
He whipped down the road until Janice asked for Dramamine, I spotted an apothecary and switched seats with her so she could be in the front. 40 minutes back to the town for lunch which was large and good. He sat with us and ate half the fries and ketchup. We had to pay for water or soda. No beer or wine in this part of the world.
After lunch and a few smokes the sky cleared and we went to the Roman ruins. We had all seen much better preserved ruins elsewhere, but off we went as he pointed to more English placards. I tried to explain that the next storm was coming and let’s hustle.
“No, you get a personal guide here, just 300 km down the road.”
The personal guide wanted to tell us too much information as I saw the black clouds coming and asked to make this quick. He had his script and wanted to tell all, but we wanted in and out. A rainbow showed up and he said “rainbow in afternoon, head for the cave”, but we didn’t, we kept slogging along.
The down pour came and we headed where we last remembered the van. Stopped by the cafe where our driver was having a cigarette and suggested he brining the van to us instead of us slogging through the parking lot. He got the hint and we headed to the hotel.
Janice convinced him that the next day would be our day off as Pam was resting and the rest of us needed to recover. “But you have lunch tomorrow”, he argued. We suggested he fix it.
We had ‘dinner’ in our room. Wine, gin, bourbon, cheese, and peanut butter cups!!
