Monday 5^th July

Leisurely start today as our bus to Amman did not leave until 11.00 am.

We arrived early for the bus knowing all the security issues that had to be gone through as usual out here. Lots of stamping of forms and things before we loaded our bags into the boot and took up our seats which were at the very front, on the top level of a double-decker coach. We assume that these are reserved for tourists as all the rest of the coach was shrouded in darkness as the curtains were all drawn to keep out the sun. We therefore had a perfect, uninterrupted view of all the scenery and we persuaded ourselves that as we were heading north up the desert highway (aka The King’s Highway), we would not be in the sun ourselves. The flaws in this logic were (1) that the vehicle did not have functioning air conditioning, but was packed with every seat full so the temperature was close to unbearable and (2) the view for the 4 hour trip along the King’s Highway was unrelenting featureless desert! As our driver had said the other day – Jordan is just sand and rocks.

The bus company did try to help things along and started by screening a few episodes of Tom & Jerry on the TV, but this was soon replaced by a 3 hour Arab epic (in Arabic of course) which seemed mostly to consist of people shooting and killing each other. Not ideal for the several families with small children watching. On the road we witnessed the usual exciting driving although it must be said that there is a lot more control over things in Jordan. However we did spot a lone wheelbarrow parked in the fast lane, goats wandering in the road (this is the nearest to a motorway here) and were briefly held up when we reached the site of an accident where they were dragging the burnt out shell of a fuel tanker and a car off the road. Traffic seems indifferent to these issues and at the crash site, despite the presence of the police, some cars, vans and the odd truck were cheerfully crossing the central reservation which was a deep V shaped ditch, before heading the wrong way down the fast lane of the other carriageway and then crossing back 100 metres down the road.

We arrived hot, tired and hungry (the bus only made one stop along the way and that was just on the side of the road in the middle of the desert) and accepted a taxi ride through the city to our ‘hotel’. The taxi driver was not prepared to name a price and insisted that we gave him whatever we wanted, which presumably normally works in his favour....

The hotel was billed as a backpackers hostel and that was a pretty apt description, but it was very clean, or so Sarah claimed and VERY basic. We wandered out into the city to find something to eat and settled for a very basic snack to last us until dinner. We went for dinner to a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet guide (heaven knows what we would have done without this invaluable book) and pretty much accepted what we were given as they had less English than we had Jordanian. Headed off to bed and slept very well despite having a pillow that seemed to have been made out of lumpy rocks.