Thursday 1^st July

Set off at 8.00 am on our 6 day trip into Jordan along with Chris and Steve from ‘Scott Free’. Firstly we took a taxi from the marina in Herzliya to the central bus station in Tel Aviv. Security in Israel is of course very tight and so we had to have our bags searched before we could enter the bus station, but then having purchased our tickets for the long coach trip down to Eilat (the Israeli port at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea), we had an hour to kill, so we bought coffees and pastries from a wonderfully eccentric vendor who had near perfect English and a very good sense of humour, and watched the world go by. The vast majority of the people walking past were in military uniform and almost all of them were wearing machine guns strapped to their shoulders. Some carried rather more substantial weapons and as I have commented before, it is hard to get used to seeing 20 year old girls so at ease with such weapons carried as others might carry a handbag!

Our coach duly arrived and we boarded the packed vehicle taking our numbered seats next to two girls, one of whom was carrying a very large machine gun. I was not sure whether to be reassured or concerned.

The 5 hour journey passed easily enough with good roads and air conditioning. We passed interesting road signs one of which that read ‘ beware of camels near the road’ and as we descended down to the level of the Dead Sea we passed a sign reading ‘Sea level’ which was only about half way down the hill. Once we arrived in Eilat (the bus was not allowed into the depot until a heavily armed policeman had walked through the vehicle eyeballing each one of us), we took a taxi to the Jordanian border crossing. This was rather more involved than I had expected and having first passed through endless passport and visa checkpoints, the four of us emerged into the bright sunshine and had to walk across the 100 metres of ‘No man’s land’ to Jordan carrying our luggage, with signs on both sides of us warning that the area beyond was mined.

As we made our way round the road blocks and headed into the first of the Jordanian controls, we had just a handful of travellers ahead of us. They turned out to be three crews from the rally as well (‘Bright Side’, ‘Walkabout Too’, and ‘Joss’) and we all had a brief chat while we waited for the visa and passport formalities to be completed. Having finally accomplished this successfully, we emerged in Jordan and had now to negotiate with the taxis. This got a little heated as there were a number of misunderstandings, but finally we realised that the deal here was that the taxis were not allowed to take us directly to our hotels in Aqaba, but could only drop us at the central bus garage where we would have to start again. So the four of us piled into one and set off, but no sooner where we clear of the military zone, the driver turned and asked which hotel we wanted and took us directly there for a few quid extra – of course!

Our hotel, the ‘Al Cazar’ was billed as ‘tired but good value’ but I think it was tired quite a few years ago – and now it is ‘time expired’. However we checked in and decided to give the murky swimming pool a miss and went off to find the travel company ‘Above and Below’ who we hoped would help us arrange and book all the next stage of our journey.

Their office turned out to be just round the corner and Jill, who runs the place was extremely knowledgeable and helped us mould our ideas into a workable plan.

After showers we set off to find the Royal Jordanian Yacht Club who were assured had an excellent restaurant open to visitors. This proved very easy to find and Steve and I ate very well, but Sarah had to continue to take things easy as she was still only gradually starting to eat properly again and Chris was also taking things slowly as she too was recovering from a few days of tummy upset. The restaurant was not too busy but sure enough there was another crew from the EMYR rally eating there (Terry and Dorothy from ‘Manca’), how small is this world?